On Friday 23 of March, the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank drew the curtain on nominations for the position of World Bank President, as Robert Zoellick plans to step down in June. Three candidates: Jim Yong Kim, Jose Antinio Ocampo and Dr. (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala have been short-listed.
Mr. Jim Yong Kim is a Korean born US national and President of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. The Korean-born Kim represents a break from the financiers and bureaucrats, who have run the World Bank. He is seen as a very smart man and has many of the characteristics that anyone would look for in a World Bank President; however, he lacks recognition among the world's development community. More importantly, he lacks the experience and knowledge of finance and broad-based development that will be essential as the world continues to recover from the global financial crisis and works to prevent its recurrence.
José Antonio Ocampo on the other hand is a Colombian national and professor at Columbia University, New York. He is a US-trained economist, who has excellent credentials in academia, national politics and at the United Nations. He has held posts as Agriculture Minister, Planning Minister and Central Bank Chairman in Colombia's government but has no support from his home government, which is looking forward to ILO Presidency.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a Nigerian and has a PhD in economic. She is a respected economist and diplomat. She has spent more than two decades in numerous positions at the World Bank. A much-heralded finance minister in Nigeria, she help the country to gain its first ever credit rating. Ordinarily, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, who until recently served as one of the bank's managing directors would be expected by experience to pick up the job but the chance of her becoming the next World Bank president is very slim.
The President of the World Bank is decided mainly by super powers led by America. It is a known fact that since the inception of the World Bank, the President has always been an American. This is as a result of a tacit agreement between Europe and America that says when Europe has its citizen as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, the United States of America will produce the President of the World Bank. Emerging countries have gone on the offensive to put an end to this succession rule. Emerging economies such as the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have sought to use their growing economic clout to pry open the selection process for the heads of the World Bank and its sister organisation, the International Monetary Fund.
While José Antonio Ocampo has no backing from his country and Angola, Nigeria and South Africa in fact the entire African leadership has endorsed the nomination of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as a candidate to take over the leadership of the bank, when Robert Zoellick steps down in June. The US backed by Europe as usual is ready to force their nominee on member nations, despite the fact that he is the least qualified of the three nominees. U S argued that it does not head any other global organisation and that giving up the World Bank presidency will make it difficult for the White House to obtain funding from the Congress for the global lender, especially with lawmakers worried about mounting budget deficits. But this does not make sense considering the quality of their nominee. Kim's highest qualification as a former director of the World Health Organization's HIV/Aids department which is increasingly been recognized as a core development issue is not good enough for the position because beyond public health, the new World Bank president will face challenges in re-tooling global and national finances for development, food price volatility, filling the massive infrastructure gap and global climate change. Kim is not versed on these issues and lacks experience in managing the delicate global, national, and local interests in play. My opinion is that the U S careless about Kim's qualification all they care about is putting someone who they can control as the president of World Bank and if they are forced to withdraw their nominee they may prefer Ocampo who has a good working relationship with the US. Ocampo won points for collaborating with US on a clamp-down on drug-related money-laundering. Colombia is arguably the US's closest partner in South America and Ocampo has earned the trust of Americans at the highest level but If the decision is finally based on merit, as it should be, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is sure to be the next World Bank president.
Rather than listening to the Washington Consensus, many developing countries took matters into their own hands at the turn of the century. Since then the developing world has grown faster than the rich, reduced poverty significantly and avoided the worst of the financial crisis that originated in the US. It would be ironic for the US to dictate the appointment at the World Bank in such an environment.
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