Washington (dpa) – The World Bank announced Friday it would consider three candidates from the United States, Colombia and Nigeria to lead the international development lender. The bank's board of directors said they would consider Jim Yong Kim of the United States, Jose Antonio Ocampo of Colombia and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria to head the body. The board will conduct interviews with the three candidates and vote for a new president at the World Bank's spring meetings, which conclude April 21 in Washington. With emerging and developing countries seeking greater participation in the institution, the nominations of Okonjo-Iweala and Ocampo for the first time challenge US leadership of the World Bank. Despite efforts by developing countries to have a greater say at the World Bank, Kim as the US nominee is the clear favorite. US President Barack Obama introduced the Korean-born Kim, a physician and president of Dartmouth College, in the White House Rose Garden just hours before Friday's deadline. The White House hopes Kim will replace World Bank President Robert Zoellick, a veteran US diplomat whose term ends June 30. Obama pointed to the World Bank's role in reducing poverty and aiding poor countries as guiding his choice of Kim. “It's time for a development professional to lead the world's largest development agency,” Obama said. Obama said Kim's “personal story exemplifies the great diversity of our country,” and cited to Kim's efforts to fight HIV/AIDS as a World Health Organization official and co-founder of the charity Partners in Health. At the WHO's HIV/AIDS program, Kim focused his efforts on the “3 by 5″ initiative to treat 3 million HIV patients by 2005. “Jim has spent more than two decades working to improve conditions in developing countries around the world,” Obama said. “The World Bank is one of the most powerful tools we have to reduce poverty and raise standards of living around the globe, and Jim's personal experience and years of service make him an ideal candidate for this job.” Kim was chairman of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and served in other medical positions before taking the helm of Dartmouth, one of the prestigious Ivy League universities, in 2009 in New Hampshire. Kim, 52, grew up in the Midwestern state of Iowa after immigrating to the United States from South Korea with his parents at age 5. Since the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were established in the 1944 Bretton Woods agreements, a European has always headed the crisis lending International Monetary Fund, while its sister agency has been led exclusively by Americans. Developing nations have pushed in recent years for a greater say in the international finance system and have sought to have one of their own lead at least one of the two Washington-based institutions. When Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn was forced to resign last year from the helm of the IMF, developing nations tried to promote a candidate who was not from the industrialized world, but the post went to French former finance minister Christine Lagarde. Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian finance minister was put forward earlier Friday by her own government, along with South Africa and Angola. “The endorsement is in line with the belief that the appointment of the leadership of the World Bank and its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, should be merit-based, open and transparent,” the three countries said in a joint statement. “Minister Okonjo-Iweala has all the credentials and qualities to be an outstanding leader of the World Bank Group.” Before becoming Nigeria's finance minister, she was a World Bank managing director for nearly four years. Okonjo-Iweala graduated from Harvard University and obtained a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1981. Ocampo had been reported to have support from Brazil, but the Colombian government had said Thursday that it would not promote his candidacy, instead focusing on a Colombian candidate to head the International Labor Organization. Ocampo's situation was unclear late Friday, despite being named a finalist by the World Bank. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/5AbtL Tags: Colombia, Kim, Nigeria, US, World Bank Section: Business, Features, Latest News
