Category Archives: Candidates

Ocampo takes shots at the US and the staff of the World Bank

Posted on by

In today’s event at CGD, Jose Antonio Ocampo said “The current president was too shy in asking for a capital increase,”… “The United States “says it cannot get the money through Congress, but it does not want to lose shares in the (Bank’s) capital. So that means we’re stuck with a World Bank which is constrained by its major shareholder.” Adding “At one point, sooner rather than later, the Bank will have to negotiate a capital increase.”
He also went on to speak about what he will change Continue reading →

With Ngozi appearances deceive

Posted on by

Patrick Bond’s three part essay on the race for the presidency for the World Bank, published below, contains a long section on Ngozi. It is in part three and is well worth a read, as it one of the few times we have seen the Nigerain finance ministers record called seriously into question. Ngozi has been the subject of countless fawning op-eds from the commentariat in Washington and Europe, with very little analysis of her tenure at the Bank or in the Nigerian government. It seems strange that an elected official, nominated for such an important position, should not receive more scrutiny. She has run a smooth PR campaign thus far, and it seems journalists have exercised their energy on Kim, with little critical fuel left in the tank for Ngozi. Continue reading →

Promise-breaking at the World Bank, Part 3: Contenders

Posted on by

It is onto the terrain of unprecedented global financial malgovernance that Kim now strides. To be sure, on the way, he’s being tripped up a little by disgruntled neoliberals like Reuters columnist Felix Salmon, who concludes, correctly, “the US government in general, and the Geithner-Clinton axis in particular, doesn’t actually want any real change at the World Bank. Change can only come from a strong president who is strongly supported by Continue reading →

Promise-breaking at the World Bank, Part 2: After

Posted on by

If you want a world without poverty or species-threatening climate change, then let’s fast-forward a bit, to the point World Bank President Jim Yong Kim breaks your heart by endorsing what remains the world’s worst financial coal-addiction (http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art.shtml?x=569967), which in turn is required to power the world’s most active financing of Resource-Curse economics in some of the world’s most despotic regimes (http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-569560). Continue reading →

Promise-breaking at the World Bank, Part 1: Before

Posted on by

That 66th birthday month of his, March 2012, was auspicious for adding a little spice to his dreary life, but no, it just can’t last. Born in March 1946 alongside his evil twin, IMF, in Savannah Georgia, after conception in what must have been a rather sleazy New Hampshire hotel (the ‘Bretton Woods’) in mid-1944, the old geezer known as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, or much better by his nickname World Bank (but let me just use WB), really ought to be considering retirement. Continue reading →