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Okonjo-Iweala loses to health expert Kim in World Bank race

Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala speaks during a media briefing in Pretoria, March 23, 2012. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

By Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON

(Reuters) – The World Bank on Monday chose Korean-born American health expert Jim Yong Kim as its new president, maintaining

Washington’s grip on the job and leaving developing countries frustrated with the selection process.

Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala speaks during a

media briefing in Pretoria, March 23, 2012. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

Kim, a physician and anthropologist who makes for a somewhat unorthodox choice to head the global

anti-poverty lender, won the job over Nigeria’s widely respected finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, with the support of

Washington’s allies in Western Europe, Japan and Canada – as well as some emerging economies.

It was the first time

in the World Bank’s history that the United States’ hold on the job was challenged.

The decision by the World

Bank’s 25-member board was not unanimous, with emerging economies splitting their support. Brazil and South Africa backed

Okonjo-Iweala, while three sources said China and India supported Kim.

Kim, 52, who is president of Dartmouth College,

will assume his new post on July 1 after Robert Zoellick steps down as head of the World Bank.

“I will seek a new

alignment of the World Bank Group with a rapidly changing world,” Kim said in a statement.

He said he would work to

ensure that the World Bank “delivers more powerful results to support sustained growth; prioritizes evidence-based solutions

over ideology; amplifies the voices of developing countries; and draws on the expertise and experience of the people we

serve.”

Okonjo-Iweala congratulated Kim and said the competition had led to “important victories” for developing

nations, which have increasingly pushed for more say at both institutions.

Still, she said more effort was needed to

end the “unfair tradition” that ensured Washington’s dominance of the global development lender.

“It is clear to me

that we need to make it more open, transparent and merit-based,” Okonjo-Iweala said. “We need to make sure that we do not

contribute to a democratic deficit in global governance.”

Some development experts criticized U.S. President Barack

Obama’s choice as lacking the economic and financial credentials needed to respond to the needs of rising middle-income

countries, which are still riddled with poverty but which are increasingly looking for innovative ways to finance their

development.

The United States said the process was open and transparent, but a number of emerging nations questioned

whether candidates were assessed on their nationalities rather than on their merits, as World Bank members countries had

agreed in 2010.

The United States has held the presidency since the World Bank’s founding after World War Two, while

a European has always led its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund.

BREAKING THE MOLD

Unlike

previous heads of the World Bank, Kim is not a politician, a banker or a career diplomat. He has worked to bring health care

to the poor in developing countries, whether fighting tuberculosis in Haiti and Peru or tackling HIV/AIDS in Russian

prisons.

His training and experience, including directing the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department and

developing treatments for a form of drug resistant tuberculosis, gave him immediate credentials as a campaigner on behalf of

the poor.

He is also a founder of Partners In Health, which focuses on community health programs for impoverished

nations. He earned both his medical degree and his doctorate in anthropology at Harvard University, where he helped set up

the Global Health Delivery Project.

South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan welcomed the fact that non-Americans

competed for the first time, but also said there were concerns the process was not fully merit-based.

“I think we are

going to find that the process falls short of that,” he said.

As part of their efforts to gain greater say in global

financial institutions, emerging economies are also pushing for greater voting power at the International Monetary

Fund.

Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said his country would not give additional money to the IMF to tackle

the effects of the European sovereign debt crisis until the institution showed firm commitment to voting

reforms.

Former Colombian finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo withdrew from the race for the top World Bank post on

Friday, saying the process had become highly political.

Nancy Birdsall, president of the Washington-based Center for

Global Development, said it would be healthy if countries made public which candidate they supported and why.

“History

was made because there were three candidates,” she said. “In the next round it would be good to have more transparency about

which board member supported which candidate for what reason.”

Birdsall said it would be important for Kim to show

early on that he was committed to change by appointing candidates from developing countries to other top posts.

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