Several previous discussions talked about potential Chinese candidates. Best to look at internal names. Over the last ten years, there have been only four Chinese names Continue reading
Monthly Archives: March 2012
Coordinated CSO Lobbying?
I find it interesting that a Canadian CSO, the McLeod Group, and Australian National University’s Development Policy Centre, launched similarly argued statements about what their governments ought to do in the upcoming short-listing and selection of Robert Zoellick’s successor. Continue reading
Will the next World Bank president have ‘official views’?
Amidst all the talk of Jeffrey Sachs’s ‘pick me!’ campaign, Larry Summer’s numerous indiscretions, and the dimming prospect of a BRIC candidate, development consultant Ben Ramalingam offers something a little different. Drawing on work by former Bank staffer and academic David Ellerman he argues that a problem with the Bank is that it has ‘official views’. These views, which the Bank pours energy and resources into coming up with, constitute the Bank’s official line on issues, and become orthodoxies that inhibit genuine learning, country and community ownership, and open dialogue:
adverse opinions and critical reasoning tend to give way to authority, rules and bureaucratic reasoning shaped by the hierarchies within the organisation. Moreover, these Official Views “short-circuit” and bypass the active learning capability of national and local actors, and substitute the authority of external agencies in its place Continue reading
Qualities required – two interesting views
Two well written pieces have caught my eye recently, with different views about what makes a good World Bank president. First, former Venezuelan Minister and Bank executive director Moisés Naím lists what he believes are five misconceptions in the Financial Times:
1. The World Bank is a bank and thus its leader should be a banker. No! The Bank is more than a bank. It is a consulting company for developing countries, a multilateral organisation, an intensely political entity as well as a highly technical one. Its role as an international lending bank is declining relative to its advisory role.
2. Its leader needs to be a politician with access to the US President and a stellar Rolodex. No! Being chums with the president and other heavyweights of course helps. But just having access to power without also having a vision for the institution has been disastrous…
3. The candidate needs to be a development expert. No! Continue reading
Criteria for choosing Zoellick’s successor
After former World Bank Executive Director Moises Naim weighed in with ‘critical tips’, thoughtful commentary in the FT by former World Bank Vice Presidents, academics Ian Goldin and Danny Leipziger, and a robust rejoinder to Goldin from former World Bank staff member Percy Mistry highlight the issues the world should expect the World Bank’s owners and board to take into account as they prepare a shortlist of three, interview candidates, and select “by consensus” Robert Zoellick’s successor.
Taken together, these contributions enrich the rather bland criteria set out by the board in its announcement of what it will take into account.
What these four notes address is the Bank’s relevance in the modern world. All four hint, or say quite broadly, that there’s a problem, and that ‘something needs to be done’. Continue reading