Jim Yong Kim, Dartmouth College president, tapped by Obama to head World Bank
President Obama on Friday nominated Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim to head the World Bank, a move that would turn the organization over to a physician and development expert as opposed to the bankers, corporate leaders and political officials who have run it since its founding.
At a morning Rose Garden ceremony, Obama said Kim was the right person to lead the bank, a source of development aid and loans for both poor and developing countries, when current President Robert Zoellick leaves office in June.
Who is Jim Yong Kim?
Elizabeth Flock and Hayley Tsukayama 8:32 AM ET
Jim Yong Kim, the Obama administration’s surprising pick to lead the World Bank, has a strong background in public health issues and developing countries.
An activist for the World Bank
Ezra Klein 9:07 AM ET
Jim Yong Kim is not a banker, economist or foreign policy guru. And maybe that’s a good thing.
Should a doctor run the World Bank?
Brad Plumer 8:03 AM ET
The pros and cons of having a public health expert at the head of the World Bank.
Obama’s groundbreaking choice for World Bank
Fred Hiatt 6:26 AM ET
OPINION | Jim Yong Kim already has first-hand knowledge of global poverty.
Video
President Obama named Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim as his nominee to head the World Bank.
.“It’s time for a development professional to lead the world’s largest development agency,” Obama said, with Kim, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton standing next to him.
Despite growing frustration from developing countries over the United States’s historic hold on the nominating process, Obama’s decision to choose Kim all but guarantees he will be appointed to the post by the World Bank board.
Citing Kim’s global experience and work on expanding HIV treatment, the president said the Korean-born physician would further the work of an institution that was important to the health of the world economy.
“When we reduce hunger in the world, it strengthens the entire world economy,” Obama said. “Ultimately when a nation goes from poverty to prosperity, it makes the world stronger and more prosperous for everyone.”
Kim did not speak at the announcement. But in a letter to Dartmouth alumni and others, he called the bank “one of the most critical institutions fighting poverty and providing assistance to developing countries in the world today,” and said that he would accept Obama’s nomination.
He was a surprising choice. The focus at first was on nominating a major political figure such as Clinton and former Treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers.
But Kim drew quick support, and one other candidate for the job, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, withdrew from contention in praise of Obama’s choice.
Kim “is a superb nominee,” Sachs said, a “world-class development leader.” Sachs had campaigned openly for the job, arguing that the bank’s next leader should be a development expert rather than someone who had spent a career in finance.
Still, Kim may be the first American World Bank nominee to face competition. Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been nominated by a member of the bank’s executive board. Under the bank’s procedures, if three or fewer people are nominated, each will be interviewed. A decision on the new president is expected before upcoming bank meetings in mid-April.
Kim, Dartmouth’s leader since July 2009, is a physician by training and an anthropologist. His background is in global health, and he has worked extensively on health issues in the developing world.
Kim directed the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization and led the agency’s “3 by 5” initiative, which sought to treat three million new HIV/AIDS patients in developing countries with antiretroviral drugs by 2005. (The goal was accomplished in 2007.)
Before coming to Dartmouth, Kim held professorships at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He was born in Seoul, South Korea, and moved to the United States at age 5, eventually earning degrees from Brown University and Harvard.
Kim co-founded the global health organization Partners in Health. When he took the helm at Dartmouth, he became the first Asian American president of an Ivy League institution.
The United States, as the world’s largest economy, has the largest percentage of votes on the World Bank’s 25-member executive board, which will vote on the nomination next month.
The bank provides low-interest loans and grants to poor countries, as well as market-rate loans to richer developing countries such as China and Brazil.
The tradition that the United States names the bank’s president, which similarly allows Europe to name the head of the International Monetary Fund, has come under increasing scrutiny from developing nations whose contributions to the global economy have grown in importance. In theory, the United States and Europe agree that the selection of the World Bank and IMF chiefs should involve an open, merit-based process. But when the IMF managing director’s job came open last year, European nations were quick to rally behind France’s finance minister, Christine Lagarde. The United States and, later, many developing countries, supported her, as well.
Zoellick, a well-regarded manager, helped steady morale at the World Bank after his predecessor, Paul Wolfowitz, resigned amid controversy. Zoellick pushed through a major increase in the bank’s capital resources and set up emergency support for eastern European nations whose financial systems were at risk.
Staff writer Debbi Wilgoren contributed to this report.
President Obama on Friday nominated Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim to head the World Bank, a move that would turn the organization over to a physician and development expert as opposed to the bankers, corporate leaders and political officials who have run it since its founding.
At a morning Rose Garden ceremony, Obama said Kim was the right person to lead the bank, a source of development aid and loans for both poor and developing countries, when current President Robert Zoellick leaves office in June.
Who is Jim Yong Kim?
Elizabeth Flock and Hayley Tsukayama 8:32 AM ET
Jim Yong Kim, the Obama administration’s surprising pick to lead the World Bank, has a strong background in public health issues and developing countries.
An activist for the World Bank
Ezra Klein 9:07 AM ET
Jim Yong Kim is not a banker, economist or foreign policy guru. And maybe that’s a good thing.
Should a doctor run the World Bank?
Brad Plumer 8:03 AM ET
The pros and cons of having a public health expert at the head of the World Bank.
Obama’s groundbreaking choice for World Bank
Fred Hiatt 6:26 AM ET
OPINION | Jim Yong Kim already has first-hand knowledge of global poverty.
Video
President Obama named Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim as his nominee to head the World Bank.
.“It’s time for a development professional to lead the world’s largest development agency,” Obama said, with Kim, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton standing next to him.
Despite growing frustration from developing countries over the United States’s historic hold on the nominating process, Obama’s decision to choose Kim all but guarantees he will be appointed to the post by the World Bank board.
Citing Kim’s global experience and work on expanding HIV treatment, the president said the Korean-born physician would further the work of an institution that was important to the health of the world economy.
“When we reduce hunger in the world, it strengthens the entire world economy,” Obama said. “Ultimately when a nation goes from poverty to prosperity, it makes the world stronger and more prosperous for everyone.”
Kim did not speak at the announcement. But in a letter to Dartmouth alumni and others, he called the bank “one of the most critical institutions fighting poverty and providing assistance to developing countries in the world today,” and said that he would accept Obama’s nomination.
He was a surprising choice. The focus at first was on nominating a major political figure such as Clinton and former Treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers.
But Kim drew quick support, and one other candidate for the job, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, withdrew from contention in praise of Obama’s choice.
Kim “is a superb nominee,” Sachs said, a “world-class development leader.” Sachs had campaigned openly for the job, arguing that the bank’s next leader should be a development expert rather than someone who had spent a career in finance.
Still, Kim may be the first American World Bank nominee to face competition. Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been nominated by a member of the bank’s executive board. Under the bank’s procedures, if three or fewer people are nominated, each will be interviewed. A decision on the new president is expected before upcoming bank meetings in mid-April.
Kim, Dartmouth’s leader since July 2009, is a physician by training and an anthropologist. His background is in global health, and he has worked extensively on health issues in the developing world.
Kim directed the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization and led the agency’s “3 by 5” initiative, which sought to treat three million new HIV/AIDS patients in developing countries with antiretroviral drugs by 2005. (The goal was accomplished in 2007.)
Before coming to Dartmouth, Kim held professorships at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He was born in Seoul, South Korea, and moved to the United States at age 5, eventually earning degrees from Brown University and Harvard.
Kim co-founded the global health organization Partners in Health. When he took the helm at Dartmouth, he became the first Asian American president of an Ivy League institution.
The United States, as the world’s largest economy, has the largest percentage of votes on the World Bank’s 25-member executive board, which will vote on the nomination next month.
The bank provides low-interest loans and grants to poor countries, as well as market-rate loans to richer developing countries such as China and Brazil.
The tradition that the United States names the bank’s president, which similarly allows Europe to name the head of the International Monetary Fund, has come under increasing scrutiny from developing nations whose contributions to the global economy have grown in importance. In theory, the United States and Europe agree that the selection of the World Bank and IMF chiefs should involve an open, merit-based process. But when the IMF managing director’s job came open last year, European nations were quick to rally behind France’s finance minister, Christine Lagarde. The United States and, later, many developing countries, supported her, as well.
Zoellick, a well-regarded manager, helped steady morale at the World Bank after his predecessor, Paul Wolfowitz, resigned amid controversy. Zoellick pushed through a major increase in the bank’s capital resources and set up emergency support for eastern European nations whose financial systems were at risk.
Staff writer Debbi Wilgoren contributed to this report.
