By Lesley Wroughton
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former Colombian finance minister Jose Antonion Ocampo knows he faces a tough battle to head the World Bank but he hopes his bid will pave the way for developing countries to one day lead the global development institution.
Ocampo is in a three-way race with U.S. nominee Jim Yong Kim, a Korean-American health expert, and Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who was put forward by South Africa, Angola and Nigeria.
It is the first time since the development lender was founded after World War Two that Washington’s nominee is being challenged: an American has always led the World Bank and a European has always led the International Monetary Fund.
Ocampo’s name surfaced in the past as a potential nominee for the IMF, but he always demurred, knowing Europe had a lock on the post.
While Kim is expected to win the World Bank job with the backing of U.S. allies in Europe, Ocampo feels a commitment by the bank to an open selection process paves the way for change.
“It is a difficult battle but it is one that is worth fighting for,” Ocampo told Reuters. “Essentially we are (planting) the seeds in a new, more open, transparent form of choice for the World Bank president.”
Unlike Kim and Okonjo-Iweala, who left the World Bank as one of its managing directors last year, Ocampo said he has hands-on experience leading national, regional and global institutions.
He led the U.N.’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and later was named U.N. Under-Secretary for Economic and Social Affairs. He also served as Colombian minister of agriculture and of planning.
He is currently director of economic and political development at Columbia University in New York and works closely with Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz on a panel looking at globalization issues.
Last year, Mexican central bank chief Agustin Carstens vied for the captaincy of the IMF. Developing nations failed to coalesce around his candidacy and former French finance minister Christine Lagarde won the post.
Ocampo said the developing world was now better organized.
He was nominated by Brazil, which represents a group of Latin American countries on the World Bank’s board. Colombia said it wanted to focus on a bid to head the International Labor Organization, where chances of success are higher.
“I am a candidate for the developing world, not just for Latin America,” Ocampo said. “My country is certainly not against my candidacy.”
As finance minister, Ocampo was credited with creating a domestic market for government debt and revitalizing growth after it stalled. By the time his term ended, Colombia’s economy was growing at an annual clip of around 5 percent.
His success managing the economy, including a surge in capital investment into Colombia, helped earn him a spot on a United Nations task force on economic crisis prevention.
PRIORITIES FOR WORLD BANK
The United States has portrayed Kim, the president of Dartmouth College and a former director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department, as someone who has demonstrated that he can get things done through his work bringing health care to the world’s poor.
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While Kim has no formal training in economics or finance, U.S. officials argue his on-the-ground experience has given him a rich feel for development.
Ocampo said that unlike Kim, he and Okonjo-Iweala had experience as both economists and policymakers. “If the contest is about capacity to do things, I think we are even,” he said.
“I have moved successfully between policy and knowledge” he added.
Ocampo has published more than 40 books and authored over 300 academic publications. “If this was judged on publications, I’d clearly win by a huge margin,” he laughed.
He said the World Bank needed to maintain its focus as the leading poverty-fighting institution. However, he said it was important to recognize poverty was not solely a problem for the world’s poorest nations; it is also widespread in dynamic emerging economies like China.
“Countries like China have major challenges from regional inequalities to environmental issues and building more resilient domestic financial systems,” he said.
Ocampo said the bank could expand efforts to combat climate change and do more to help nations become energy efficient.
Moreover, it should more effectively deploy its knowledge to help its members overcome development challenges by sharing experiences it has collected from around the world.
“It is the most important center of thought in development in the world,” he said. “This knowledge capacity is closely linked … to its global character to transmit knowledge from one country (or) region to another, which is unique capital the World Bank has.”