The conservative Washington Times Newspaper manages to be tough on both the World Bank and Jim Kim, while endorsing Ngozi, all at the same time. It puts its argument this way; “The World Bank will be interviewing candidates for its next president in a process meant to be open, transparent and merit-based. President Obama’s nominee, Jim Yong Kim, president of Dartmouth College, has the inside track, though developing-country aspirants, such as Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, are better qualified. There are also many Americans who would make a better choice.” Adding “In an ideal world, there would be no World Bank. When selecting the institution’s next leader, America – and the world – have a lot more talent to offer than Dr. Kim.”
Category Archives: Archive – previous races
A question of credibility
Here is a question that keeps on nagging at me; what will be the reputational cost to the World Bank and Mr. Kim himself, once the charade of this selection process is over and he is confirmed as the new President of the World Bank?.
I say once, since it seems quite clear that after all the noise about merit based selection by the G20, the directors on the board of the bank will eventually cast their votes according to their shares.
Now, that there seems to be almost a universal judgment that Mr. Kim is the least qualified of the three candidates for the job, how will his credibility – and hence effectiveness, and that of the bank, fare after he takes over?
“Who do you think should win?”
An online poll by the Guardian Newspaper: Who should be the next president of the World Bank?
“The World Bank presidency should not be an apprenticeship”
Jagdish Bhagwati takes on Obama in an opinion article published by Project Syndicate. He starts his argument saying:
“What .. does Obama’s choice tell us about the sincerity of his feminist rhetoric? Does he draw the line wherever it suits him? In fact, if Obama and his advisers could not stomach Okonjo-Iweala on the ground that she is not American, surely they could have nominated an American woman who was also vastly superior to Kim for the job.” Suggesting that Laura Tyson, who chaired the President’s Council of Economic Advisers under Bill Clinton, or Lael Brainard, who is now Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs would have been a better choice.
He goes on to add “.. it is the rapid acceleration of economic growth in the major emerging countries that has reduced poverty, not only directly, through jobs and higher incomes, but also by generating the revenues governments need to undertake the public-health, education, and other programs that sustain poverty reduction – and growth – in the long term. India followed this path. So did Brazil’s former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – after the reforms undertaken by his predecessor produced the revenues that could then be spent on programs to aid the poor further.”
Will Obama choose to make history ?
The race for the next President of the World Bank’s Group just got a whole lot more interesting with the formal nomination of former Managing Director and current Finance Minister of Nigeria; Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, and, the less exciting, former Colombian Finance Minister Jose Antonio Ocampo . Ngozi’s nomination will, no doubt, make it very hard for the US Administration to put forward a credible nominee that can match her skill and reputation, even if they nominate a woman. Most of the representatives of the developing countries on the board of the World Bank are expected to line up behind Ngozi. The one and only thing missing from Ngozi’s CV is a US nationality. The Obama administration will certainly Continue reading