Who should be the next president of the World Bank?
The Board of Directors of the World Bank usually selects the candidate nominated by the United States as its President. However, this need not be the case.
We will send the results of this "election" to Canadian officials.
FINAL ELECTION RESULTS [June 18, 2007]
| Nominee | Percentage of vote |
|---|---|
Stephen Lewis, his Foundation combats AIDS in Africa |
62% |
| Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Minister of Finance for Nigeria | 6% |
Stan Fischer, the First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (Sept 1994 to Aug 2001) and Trevor Manuel, the current Minister of Finance for South Africa |
3% each |
Other nominees include:
Al Gore
Bill Clinton
Bill Gates
Bono
Charles Soludo
Dr. Peter Ngomba
Ernesto Zedillo
FW de Klerk
George Monbiot
Graeme Wheeler
Jacques Chirac
Jean Ziegler
Kermel Dervis
Kofi Annan
Muhammad Yunus
Nelson Mandela
Paul Martin Jr.
Tony Blair
Tony Clarke
Trevor Manuel
Vandana Shiva
Wangar Maathai
Wolf Blitzer
More Information
- "Wolfowitz Watch" at the website of the Bank Information Center (Washington) has a lot of well organized information and news about the selection process for the president of the World Bank
- The Government of Canada's position on the WB's presidential selection process is outlined in the " Report on Operations Under the Bretton Woods and Related Agreements Act 2006":
"To improve governance and accountability, Canada and other members have advocated the need to introduce a transparent, merit-based process for selecting the heads of multilateral institutions."
- Efforts to reform the process (not implemented). On April 25, 2001, the working groups of the IMF and WB released a “Joint Draft Report” recommending “improvements to the selection process of the President and Managing Director, which would apply whether or not there are any understandings regarding the nationality of the President/Managing Director.”
The key recommendations include:
Read the full report at:
- The creation of a geographically balanced Advisory Group (AG) which will be responsible for finding and assessing the potential candidates. Members of the AG would be drawn from academia, international development/affairs, banking, finance, etc.;
- Greater transparency and accountability in the process;
- Merit-based selection based on pre-identified qualities, including: knowledge of the institution, professional experience, academic experience, etc.; and
- The AG assessments should be circulated to the Executive Directors via confidential means whereupon a “short-list” will be decided.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTSITETOOLS/0,,contentMDK:20147466~menuPK:344189~pagePK:98400~piPK:98424~theSitePK:9547
- FAQs from the World Bank, including info on how the president is conventionally selected [click here]
- How each member state's vote is weighted [click here]
- Why Paul Wolfowitz is leaving - an article by the BBC [click here]
- Worldbankpresident.org - "The site you need to track the media coverage, insider gossip, official reactions and civil society activity on the World Bank president."