Jim Yong Kim nominated for WB president

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Jim Yong Kim nominated for WB president

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President Obama nominated Dartmouth College president Jim Yong Kim as new president of World Bank.

23 March,2012 10:43 pm

Citing Kim’s record working on international health in the Rose Garden Friday, Obama said, “It’s time for a development professional to lead the world’s largest development agency.”Kim, a trained medical doctor who has led the Ivy League college since 2009, will replace Robert Zoellick, whose term ends June 30.“Despite its name, the World Bank is more than just a bank—it’s one of the most powerful tools we have to reduce poverty and raise standards of living in some of the poorest countries in the planet,” Obama said. “Jim has truly global experience. He’s worked from Asia to Africa to the Americas, from capitals to small villages.”Though the board of the World Bank will officially decide on the next president over the next three weeks, the president’s nomination effectively guarantees Kim the post as the new head of the prestigious 187-nation lending organization focused on economic development.Kim was not one of the names that had been often discussed publicly for the post. Names floated included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and economist Larry Summers, who was treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and later director of Obama’s National Economic Council.Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs had actively campaigned for the position, racking up endorsements from 27 Democratic congressmen and government officials and government leaders in countries like Kenya, Chile and Bhutan.“Dr Jim Kim is a superb nominee for the World Bank presidency,” Sachs said in a statement. “I support his nomination 100 percent. I congratulate the administration for nominating a world-class development leader for this position.”Kim, 52, has been involved in development work as the former executive director of the nonprofit Partners In Health, which provides medical services in countries including Haiti, Peru, Russia and Rwanda. He also led the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department from 2004 to 2006, in addition to formerly being a professor at Harvard Medical School and winning a MacArthur Foundation genius grant in 2003.Kim’s three years at Dartmouth has been marked by some controversy, most recently over reports that fraternities have been savagely hazing their pledges. The Boston Globe noted earlier this month that “faculty are in revolt, students are pressing for change” and many on the New Hampshire campus “accuse Kim of abdicating leadership on the issue.”