A Non-Contest at the World Bank

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/opinion/a-non-contest-at-the-world-bank.html

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The deadline for submitting nominations for the job of president of the World Bank is Sept. 14, about a week away, and so far the only candidate, and the likely winner, is the person who is already running the place: Jim Yong Kim.

This is unfortunate on two counts. As has been true from the bank’s creation in 1944, an American, without having to contend with international competitors, would again occupy the top position for a five-year term, starting next July. In addition, the opportunity to use the selection process as an open forum to debate the institution’s mission and how it ought to evolve would be lost.

The bank gives loans, grants and advice to developing countries, and, with $371 billion in assets, it remains a pillar of the global economy. But it has become less relevant as many countries, including China and India, have found other sources of capital and no longer need its loans. China has so much money that it is creating new development banks to lend to other developing countries, thus effectively displacing the World Bank.

Running and modernizing an institution as big as the World Bank is a tough job. Mr. Kim, a public health expert and former president of Dartmouth College, has responded to these challenges by restructuring the bank along development areas like governance, health and education, rather than primarily along geographic lines as it had been for years. He also has set a goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and has emphasized public health and climate change projects.

Mr. Kim’s restructuring plan made sense on paper because it had the potential to foster deeper subject-matter expertise among staff members, but it became embroiled in bureaucratic fights and the abrupt departures of senior executives, including three top women. And several development economists say that this approach has not made the bank more effective at helping countries increase economic growth and create jobs.

Many bank employees found the changes demoralizing and say they received conflicting directions from top management. In an unusual letter to the bank’s board, the staff association, which has 10,500 dues-paying members, said that the bank is “experiencing a crisis of leadership.”

Then there is the matter of the American lock on the presidency. The bank was conceived along with the International Monetary Fund at a meeting of officials from the United States, Britain and other countries in Bretton Woods, N.H. Since then, American presidents have picked the bank’s top executive and European leaders have chosen the fund’s president.

Academics, public interest groups and others have criticized this arrangement for failing to take account of the importance of Asian, Latin American and African countries in the global economy. In response, the boards of both institutions said in April 2011 that they would start picking presidents in a process based on merit.

But in practice not much has changed. In February, the fund’s board reappointed Christine Lagarde, a former finance minister of France, to a second five-year term as president after no other candidate was nominated. And Mr. Kim is expected to coast to a second term in the coming weeks. Nominated last month by the Treasury Department, he has since picked up support from Brazil, China, France, Germany, Korea, Indonesia, the Netherlands and other countries. Few countries are likely to propose other candidates knowing that Mr. Kim has so much support.

While Mr. Kim may be a good choice to lead the bank for the next five years, the fact that the institution is not using this election as an opportunity to debate competing visions does not bode well for its future.