As the White House keeps it lips seeled on who its candidate might be, and pointedly makes no public commitment on the status of the ‘gentlemans agreement’, we’re often left to contemplate the snatches of gossip, conjecture and rumour that trickle forth from DC. Alan Beattie, international economics editor at the Financial Times, is an old Washington-hand, and a well connected fellow. If anyone knows which whispers in Washington are the right ones to listen to, it’s probably him. And his recent article for the FT may be a little deflating for those hoping that this time things will be different. The clue is in the rather unequivocal title, ‘US to keep grip on helm of World Bank’. Continue reading
BRICS spring into action
With the same non-lightining speed they displayed during the IMF’s last selection process — and the same vagueness — the BRICS finance ministers, meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting on this weekend in Mexico City — said they really should nominate someone. Continue reading
Didn’t we already get the memo…
As we know, the unofficial and informal agreement between the United States and Europe is that the U.S. selects the president of the World Bank and the Europeans select the managing director of the Fund. It is a time-honored (at least from the end of WWII) tradition as familiar to some as death and taxes. Continue reading
Good Advice from Center for Global Development’s Nancy Birdsall
In a CGD “wonkcast”, Nancy Birdsall sets out some excellent criteria for the next World Bank president.
Ability to “corral” the World Bank’s resident, 25-person board onto a new agenda, including perhaps letting loose their grip on how the Bank runs, day-to-day, will be key. This will involve personal and persuasive skills that the Bank has not seen much in evidence since Jim Wolfensohn’s departure nearly seven years ago. Admittedly, Wolfensohn had a rocky start, and a stormy relationship with the Executive Directors at times, but once he realized that “what’s good for the Bank is good for Jim Wolfensohn, and vice versa” he moved the Bank to a new level of respect and effectiveness, with a Board that was fully behind him. Continue reading
And the winner of the poll is…
As we closed the World Bank president poll this week, over 15,000 people had voted for their favourite developing country candidate.
The result? Well, our friends in Indonesia came out in force, resulting in a landslide victory for Sri Mulyani Indrawati, an Indonesian economist and one of the current Managing Directors of the World Bank Group, who beat her opponents with a staggering 87% of the votes.