Nominations for World Bank president close today, and barring a miracle, it will be a one horse race.

In Norway yesterday, Zoellick met with development minister Erik Solheim: “The Norwegian principled position is that this should be an open competition where everyone should be able to run – Chinese, Argentinian, whatever, Norwegian for that matter.  We will work with other governments to make such a procedure for future presidential appointments of the World Bank. That said, we think this is a very good proposal of Mr Zoellick as the new president of the World Bank.” Solheim also said that Europe’s prerogative to choose the head of the IMF should also be abandoned. Continue reading →

Liberal Democrat shadow international development secretary, Lynne Featherstone MP, has written to chancellor Gordon Brown and development secretary Hilary Benn calling on the British government to nominate another candidate or “failing that, to instruct the executive director on the board of the World Bank not to support the nomination”. Continue reading →

Amid reports that the Volker Panel’s audit of Suzanne Rich Folsom’s INT is likely to be a whitewash, the Government Accountability Project is doing its own audit. Continue reading →

While it does require some grasp of British geography, a comment by David Woodward in the Guardian brilliantly highlights the absurdity of the leadership selection process and the governance structures of the Bank.

In London on Monday, Zoellick sidestepped questions on whether the US should retain the right to annoint the head of the Bank. The FT reports that when asked if he was likely to do a Wolfowitz by bringing in his own people to key positions in the Bank, he quipped: “I don’t have people. I have two cats and two rabbits.” Which does raise the question of whether they would be better qualified than some of the Wolfowitz appointees. Continue reading →