Obama Should Decline to Nominate the Next World Bank Boss
As soon as the World Bank confirmed Wednesday that Robert Zoellick will step down as president this summer, the tussle over who should succeed him began.
The Obama administration, abiding by a decades-long custom, says it expects to name the replacement. That custom has outlived any semblance of propriety. The White House should think again.
For seven decades it was accepted that a U.S.-nominated American would lead the World Bank and a European backed by Europe’s main powers would head the International Monetary Fund. This cozy arrangement, always lacking in legitimacy, was once defensible as a practical matter.
It’s telling that nobody any longer even attempts such a defense. The arrangement is rightly seen as an affront to Brazil, China, India and the other fast-growing developing economies. It’s also inimical to the very idea of international cooperation on terms of mutual respect - and not just for the countries excluded from any say in the matter.
Truth. For an institution that gallivants around the world fretting about secretive and tradition-bound and cronyist governance practices, the fact that tradition still dictates that the World Bank is run by whomever the US President unilaterally appoints is patently ridiculous. I’d love to see someone smart and capable from outside the OECD running things for once.
