Reuters is reporting that the Board of Executive Directors will hold a “straw poll” this Friday, ahead of the formal vote on the 16th. The usually well informed, Lesley Wroughton, writes “The board meets on Friday to conduct a straw poll to see if one candidate emerges as a clear favourite. It is expected to announce its choice on April 16, in time for the IMF and World Bank meetings of global finance leaders in Washington the same week.”
Category Archives: The Process
Latin American CSOs hold WB EDs to account for their vote
Below is a guest post by María José Romero of the Latin American network of NGOs Latindadd, with its secretariat in Lima, Peru.
In a letter sent on April 5 to World Bank Executive Directors representing Latin American countries, Latin American NGOs Fundar, DAR and Latindadd asked about the criteria for the selection of the new President of the institution. José Antonio Ocampo, the Colombian candidate to lead the World Bank has already met 18 of the 25 Bank’s Executive Directors and on Tuesday 10 April (today) the Board of Executive Directors as a whole will interview him.
In an ideal world each and every Latin American country should support Ocampo’s candidacy. As Kevin Gallagher says, “if the decision is finally based on merit, as it should be, Ocampo will win: he is far and away better than any on the list of credible names, including President Barack Obama’s nominee, Jim Yong Kim.” Continue reading
Kim-watch update
Felix Salmon from Reuters has picked up the Kim-watch theme, calling it a “depressing tactical silence”:
Kim has actually given a handful of on-the-record interviews, which make it very clear that giving on-the-record interviews is not a great way for him to get the job. Continue reading
For all the drama, this time is different
Despite the fractious disagreement and impugning, there is full agreement that the Bank needs a new direction, in a new world. Continue reading
“Whose World Bank?”
Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics and former Chief Economist of the World Bank weights in the debate with an opinion piece in Project Syndicate:
“Should America continue to insist on controlling the selection process, it is the bank itself that would suffer. For years, its effectiveness was compromised because it was seen, in part, as a tool of Western governments and their countries’ financial and corporate sectors. Ironically, even America’s Continue reading