Nigerian wins key backing for WB job

The World Bank has announced it would conduct interviews with the three candidates to replace the outgoing president Robert Zoellick next week.

The executive board of the bank has to choose between Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former World Bank managing director, Jose Antonio Ocampo, a former finance minister of Colombia, and development economist and Jim Yong Kim, a global health expert.

The board will interview Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigeria’s highly regarded Nigerian Finance Minister on Monday.

On Tuesday, the board will interview Ocampo while Kim, a Dartmouth College President and former head of the World Health Organisation’s HIV/Aids unit, will be interviewed Wednesday.

African head

Although the US candidate, Korean-American physician Yong Kim, is widely expected to be named to lead the Bretton Woods institution, this is the first World Bank president selection process that includes non-US challengers.

A group of former World Bank officials have written a letter backing Okonjo-Iweala, to be its next president. There also been calls from emerging markets like China, India and Brazil for an open selection process that would allow genuine competition.

However, the US is the bank’s largest shareholder and is sure to win the backing of most European countries, which by tradition pick the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with US support.

The combined shares of US and Europe in each organisation make it nearly impossible for a candidate from other nationalities to break the unwritten pact.

Insiders say Okonjo-Iweala’s experience would put her as a leading contender, were it not for the US backing of Kim.

The board will interview Jose Antonio Ocampo on Tuesday. If chosen, Kim, whose nomination is said to have been designed in part to neutralise criticism from developing nations about the United States lock on the job, would be the first non-white president of the World Bank.

He has already won the backing of key officials from some emerging nations, including South Korea and Rwanda.

The bank plans to make a final decision by April 20, when it starts its spring meetings with the IMF. Zoellick announced earlier this year that he will step down in June at the end of his five-year term.