Campaigners demand fair selection process as Zoellick finally says he will step down

Increased rumours this week proved to be right as Zoellick just announced today that he will step down at the end of his first term as World Bank president, on 30 June. Reacting to the announcement, a global coalition of campaigners has issued an open letter to World Bank governors calling for an open and merit-based process to elect the next Bank president, and for developing countries to determine the selection:

 As the Bank only operates in developing countries, and has most impact in low-income countries, any candidate that was not supported by these countries would seriously lack legitimacy. In addition to encouraging developing countries to nominate their own candidates, the best way to ensure that developing countries play a central role throughout the selection process is for the successful candidate to be required to gain the support of a majority of both voting shares and member countries. This need not require any formal changes to the Bank’s articles of agreement, but could simply be agreed by the Board, to build on the limited proposals agreed in April 2011.

 

The full letter can be found at www.brettonwoodsproject.org/wbpresletter2012

A press release is also available at www.brettonwoodsproject.org/wbpressrelease

4 thoughts on “Campaigners demand fair selection process as Zoellick finally says he will step down

  1. “As the Bank only operates in developing countries, …” Where’s the legitimacy in this notion that customers choose the head of a corporation? Let’s go with voting according to ownership shares, like any other business.

  2. So now the WSJ is on the case :
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204792404577225083706004076.html
    Under Secretary for International Affairs Lael Brainard is heading the search committee, with former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton among the names mentioned in press reports as possible appointments. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that Ms. Brainard was a candidate for the job.

Comments are closed.