OK, confession time. I grew up in a World Bank household. My mother started working there when I was two; my father joined the International Finance Corporation when I was four. As a child I heard snippets of conversation about West African travels and poverty around the world. I also picked up talk of “golden handshakes” and benefits such as my own private school education being subsidized by the Bank. At some later point, I hope to capture a lot of these contradictions in a book. At the moment, it’s worthwhile asking whether these benefits and high salaries are necessary for an institution that claims to be about “poverty reduction”. In this article, Wolfowitz’s Golden Parachute, I look at Wolfowitz’s attempt to take these policies to an extreme, and argue that it’s time to end the hypocrisy.

Paul Wolfowitz’s surprising–and seemingly ineffective–character reference for his protégé Scooter Libby, read to a captivated court at Libby’s sentencing hearing, should remind us of the unfinished HR business at the Bank. Nominee Robert Zoellick launches his worldwide listening tour and charm tour, but let’s not forget the housecleaning that everyone’s anticipating to get them, and the post-Wolfowitz Bank, back to work.

Reread Voice of Reason’s May 14 “watch what Shaha Riza and Paul Wolfowitz do, not what they say.” This insightful piece during the drama put some context around Shaha’s career at the Bank. Her contribution was not, ahem, quite as Paul Wolfowitz believed, and would have had the Board believe. His handling of his lover’s career was the incident that helped unravel his deeply flawed presidency.

Shaha is desperately negotiating her return to the Bank now that the conflict of interest–Wolfowitz–is about to be removed.  It’s not finished, though, until the Bank and State complete their investigations into Bank employee Shaha’s jaunt to Iraq, apparently as an employee of defence contractor SAIC.

It now seems that it was apparently Shaha advising Wolfowitz not to resign and how to handle the Board and others so aggressively right up to the end. We always thought it was Robin Cleveland (banished to a broom closet but still very much on Bank premises) but it was just as much Shaha all the way along. Continue reading →

The Treasury Department has issued a press release documenting nominee Bob Zoellick’s peripatetic visits to Africa, Europe and Latin America on a ‘charm surge’ to meet with Bank stakeholders. After his words about the need for healing, what is conspicuous by its absence is any meeting with Bank staff during his 15 day trip, which is being cofinanced by US taxpayers and his own frequent flyer points.

It perhaps behooves Mr. Zoellick and his handlers to indicate when he will talk to Bank staff and management, who need to get a measure of the man and whether his leadership skills and management style are an upgrade from what the world has put up with for these last two long years. He also needs to confirm whether he has some outsiders coming with him to the Bank, and what exactly they will be helping with.

It is surprising that the global NGOs who have raised concerns about his old jobs (advocating for protected farmers, global trade liberalization, Big Pharma, and Goldman Sachs) have not sought time on his agenda.

Presumably there is lots of time between his return and the Board’s interviews and formal consideration of his nomination (and any others) for him to meet with Bank staff and civil society to answer their questions and show he has “the right stuff” to be World Bank President.

When will the rest of his schedule be announced?

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Steve Clemons on The Washington Note blog writes that “Zoellick was one of the ‘heroes’ who got the US government to sign on to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Zoellick headed the US effort and was the guide for EPA Administrator William Reilly through that effort. Clemons adds that he has spoken with “a number of environmental leaders at organisations such as the World Resources Institute who have said that Zoellick has been actively engaged with them – from the early 1990s up until now”. Cue that panda photo.

A week after getting the nod from the White House, Zoellick is embarking on a Worldwide goodwill tour :“I want to leave no stone unturned in showing people I am serious,” as reported by FoxNews. Surprisingly, he is not going to Asia after travelling to Ghana, Ethiopia, South Africa, Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Norway, Mexico and Brazil. Continue reading →