Remember when George W. Bush rewarded Paul Wolfowitz for his prescience on Iraq by naming him to head the World Bank? Yeah, that was awesome. And remember when, after Wolfowitz proved to be a total disaster and massive embarrassment, Bush appointed a managing director of Goldman Sachs to be his replacement? Yeah, that was super-awesome. Because who cares about global poverty more than Goldman Sachs, right?
This time is going to be different:
President Obama on Friday nominated Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim, a physician and anthropologist by training, to succeed Robert Zoellick as the next president of the World Bank.
The naming of Kim was seen as a surprise. Kim, 52, though highly regarded for his leadership in global health issues, is not well known in political or financial circles. But the appointment of the South Korean-born Kim may also deflect criticisms from developing economies of the United States having a lock on the World Bank’s top position.
Kim, president of Dartmouth since 2009, was the former director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/Aids department.
Even the loathsome Fred Hiatt is impressed.
The mission of the World Bank is to help lift people out of poverty, and Kim will be the first bank leader who has dedicated most of his professional life to working with and for the world’s poor.
With another pioneering physician-anthropologist, Dr. Paul Farmer, Kim established an organization dedicated to treating poor people in Haiti, Peru, Rwanda and beyond. The founding principle of Partners in Health was that everyone is entitled to first-class health care, no matter where they live or how poor they are.
The significance of Partners was that it didn’t just declare that as a principle: Farmer and Kim proved, in the face of many doubters and over the course of many years of hard work, that first-class health care can be delivered, respectfully, in the poorest precincts of the poorest countries…
…Past World Bank presidents have included many eminent men, beginning in 1946 with a former publisher of this newspaper, Eugene Meyer. There have been politicians (Barber Conable), defense strategists (Robert McNamara and Paul Wolfowitz), lawyer-diplomats (John J. McCloy and the incumbent, Robert Zoellick) and a half-dozen bankers.
Most of them, however brilliant they were, had to learn on the job about the challenges of poverty and development. That won’t be a problem for Kim.
It seems to me that the guy is really well-qualified to run a World Bank that actually does what the World Bank is supposed to do. And I guess that was the president’s priority, too, since he passed over people like Larry Summers and John Kerry to make this choice.
He still has to be confirmed to the position by the board, but I doubt he’ll have a problem. I expect this choice will eliminate a lot of the grumbling in the developing world about America’s lock on choosing the president. It works on every level, from Kim being Korean-born to his work experience and focus.
Let’s hope he sets a new course and doesn’t become just another bloodsucker.
