An unconventional choice…
At first glance,
Kimis an unconventional choice for the Bank. Unlike his predecessors, Kim has
relatively little experience in finance or economics. Rather than having held high-ranking
government posts, such as Zoellick
or Paul Wolfowitz (the tenth President of the World Bank), or
founding their own investment firm, such as James Wolfensohn (the ninth President of the World Bank), most of Kim’s experience
lies instead in global health.
Early in his
career as an M.D., Kim co-founded Partners in Health (PIH) in 1987, along with his
colleagues Paul Farmer, Todd McCormack, Thomas White and Ophelia Dahl. Upon it
inception, the organization focused on developing community-based initiatives
to address the plethora of health problems plaguing Haiti. Later on, PIH tackledmulti-drug
resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB)in Peru with resounding success. In 1997, the WHO released the first edition
of their Treatment of Tuberculosis:
Guidelines for National Programs, which essentially statedthat due to the
expense of secondary line treatments, MDR-TB patients werenot worth
treating. PIH, led by Kim and his
colleagues, disagreed.Using their community-based model in the shantytowns of
Peru, PIH achieved higher
cure rates of
MDR-TB than seen in the US at the time. Guided by their principle value of
helping those in need regardless of the cost, PIH inspired change in the
treatmentof MDR-TB against all odds.
Kim also made
dramatic strides in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, as the director of the HIV/AIDS
program at the WHO. In his time with the organization, Kim spearheaded the 3x5
campaign, which
aimed to provide AIDS treatment to three million people in developing countries
by 2005. This was perhaps an overambitious goal, as 2005 came and went with
approximately only one million people affected by the campaign, but it
nonetheless reflected Kim’s need to take on the problems of the world’s most
vulnerable. The goal of three million was eventually reached in 2007, and
according to The Lancet, the
initiative was deemed to have “changed forever the way we think about AIDS.”[1]
As Kim went on
to hold several distinguished positions at Harvard and then serve as the
President of Dartmouth College, he has continued to pushthe global health
agenda forward through galvanizing student efforts. At Dartmouth, where he
began his tenure in 2009, Kim launched the National College
Health Improvement Project, aimed to address health issues that affect students.Whether talking
about a rural village in sub-Saharan Africa or a college community at
Dartmouth, Kim continued to inspire his students to be great. His inaugural
address to Dartmouthurged, “Your generation must dream, dream more ambitiously
than any who have preceded you. But just to dream is not enough. You must
deliver on the dream where previous generations have fallen short.”
All of this has
amounted to an impressive resume of accomplishments. Certainly if Kim was named
the head of any international health organization, there would be no protest.
But a bank? There is an uneasinessamong some that Kim does not understand the
world of economics, and even worse, vilifies it. In an interview with the
Financial Times, economics professor William Easterly called Kim “anti-growth” based on Dying for Growth, a book Kim co-authored. In it, Kim says things
like, “The studies in this book present evidence that the quest for growth in
GDP and corporate profits has in fact worsened the lives of millions of women
and men.” So the question is, can a man who is primarily interested in health
effectively run an economic institution?
…But not a surprising one
Yet despite
Kim’s unconventional background, the World Bank’s choice is not a surprising
one. Since its establishment, the WB hasfollowedthe same pattern of choosing
the nominee put forth by the United States, just as the head of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) has always been chosen by Europe. It did not
escape the attention of many that the US was quick to back Europe’s choice of Christine
Lagarde for the
head of the IMF earlier in 2011, while vice versa was true of the US’s
nomination of Kim.
This does not
sit well with many in the international development field, given that the World
Bank’s primary agenda is to help developing nations, which includes neither the
US or Western Europe. Dissenters are quick to labelthe entire process a
political game, devoid of meritocracy. In fact, one of the Kim’s fellow
nominees, Colombia’s former finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo, withdrew from
the race, calling it too political.The only other nominee for the job was NgoziOkonjo-Iweala, current finance minister in Nigeria.
Highly respected and touted by many, including The Economist, as the best candidate for the job,
Okonjo-Iweala has made it her mission to fight the corruption that plagues
Nigerian politics, and hasexperience in economics, government and development –
a triad that is critical to the World Bank.
Yet, despite Okonjo-Iweala and Ocampo’s strong resumes, the announcement
of Kim as the next president of the World Bank surprised few. As Professor Simon Evenett, a former World Bank official, told The Guardian, “There was never really a
contest…the West won’t give up its hold over these institutions until they need
something from the emerging markets.”
Looking forward
The fact that
the nomination process is political and US-dominated cannot be ignored. Without
a doubt, the process lacks transparency and neutrality. Yet the very existence
of protest and competition against the US nominee this year marks progress
towards a more meritocratic process. Moreover, a flawed process does not necessarily
preclude the selection of exceptional candidates. No one doubts Kim’ssincerity
to international development, and his wealth of experience surely means that he
knows international cooperation will be vital for success. In a statement he released after being announced as the next
President, Kim stated he had already spoken to Oncampo and Okonjo-Iweala, and
was eager to draw upon their knowledge during his tenure.
Furthermore,
while he does not have formal training in economics, Kim is not
withoutexperience. Let’s not forget that for the past three years as Dartmouth
President he has been at the helm of a major institution,which includes its
financial planning. Moreover, accusations that he is “anti-growth” seem to be
exaggerated.His former partner Paul Farmer wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post, stating that Kim’s
statements in Dying for Growth were
taken out of context and that. If anything, Farmer wrote, their prose is
pro-growth, seekingnew ways to encourage inclusive development for countries in
need while simultaneously“raising questions about particular policies and
patterns of growth that exclude the great majority of people living in
poverty.”All this actually fits in rather well with the World Bank’s mission to
help reduce poverty, and to encourage development of the world’s poorest
countries. What better person to help the world’s poorest develop, than someone
who has worked intimately with them, and has already made it his mission to
help them?
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