By Lesley Wroughton
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) – The unprecedented challenge posed by developing countries to the U.S. grip on the World Bank presidency will test
industrial nations’ commitment to an open selection process, former Colombian finance minister and nominee Jose Antonio
Ocampo said on Tuesday.
presidential nominee Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (C) of Nigeria leaves after an interview at the World Bank headquarters building in
Washington April 9, 2012. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
“We are putting the industrial countries to account …
if they are really committed to an open, merit-based system,” Ocampo told an event hosted by the Center for Global
Development and the Washington Post.
Ocampo and Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala are up against U.S.
nominee Jim Yong Kim, a Korean-born American health expert and president of Dartmouth College.
Under an informal
agreement, the World Bank has always been led by an American and the International Monetary Fund by a European since the
founding of the institutions after World War Two.
Earlier on Tuesday Ocampo was interviewed by the 25-member World
Bank board of member countries. He said each of the board directors asked between two to five questions, which focused mainly
on his qualifications for the job.
Kim’s turn to be interviewed by the board is on Wednesday. It will be the first
time board directors will have the opportunity to question him on his vision for the World Bank.
Kim is likely to
succeed Robert Zoellick as the next World Bank president given the United States’ large voting bloc and support from allies
in Europe, Canada and Japan.
Since his nomination on March 23, Kim has toured the world talking to member countries in
Africa, Asia and Latin America. Immediately after his meeting with the board and bilateral meetings with individual
directors, he flies to Moscow.
“In advance of the vote, Dr. Kim’s immediate top priority is to meet with as many of
the World Bank’s shareholder and client countries as he can to discuss how the Bank can best promote growth, combat poverty,
and create jobs in developing nations,” a U.S. Treasury spokesperson said.
Kim is widely credited for his work in
fighting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and providing healthcare to the poor in impoverished countries.
The board meets on
Friday to conduct a straw poll to see if one candidate emerges as a clear favorite. 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.
Emerging
and developing countries have pushed aggressively for more say in the World Bank and its sister organization the IMF, arguing
that their growing economic clout should be recognized by giving them more power in the two finance
institutions.
Ocampo said the next few days will be important in determining whether the selection process was based
on the merits of each candidate or on voting power.
Okonjo-Iweala, who was the first nominee to be interviewed by the
board on Monday, called on the United States to show leadership by ending the long tradition of an American always heading
the World Bank.