The World Bank Presidential Elections.

With the World Bank meetings coming up. The race is now up to two candidates, American Jim Yong Kim and Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala with the Colombian Jose Antonio Ocampo having dropped out already. Originally I wasn't interested in the news pertaining to the jostling for the job among these world actors. But the endorsement of Okonjo ahead of Kim by The Economist got me thinking. It seemed to me that the Western consensus regarding apportioning these key jobs among themselves on reasons other than meritocracy was losing steam among themselves. The failure by the WB and like-minded institutions to reduce poverty substantially and thereby contributing to sustainable development has necessitated a rethink in how development issues are handled and the first step is having a competent person at the top.

On who should lead the WB among the candidates, it is clear that Okonjo is the best person in terms of depth and experience having been previously been a Managing Director at the same institutioon. Of course Kim has had some experience in issues such as public health but what matters at the end of the day is how the scarce resourses are going to be allocated to achieve an optimun result. Okonjo is one who has been there and seen it. Kim is at present struggling to give a clear picture on how the WB under him will look like. If he wasn't nominated he wouldn't have been a contender for the post therefore I dont see how now he could suddenly be the best guy around. Some supporters of Kim have been theorising that he is unorthodox hence he will present a new face and ideas to the WB. But Kim is not competent enough in wholesome development issues including food security, affordable housing, firm state institutions, the funding matrix etc (he's limited to public healthcare, his area of expertise). Like I mentioned before, the key here is how to balance the books to fund and manage these development areas, something Kim lacks. Other people such as Noam Scheiber have been naive to suggest that appointing an American is essential to secure Congress funding. Here's the case, the Chinese Developent Bank's assets are worth more than those of the WB and Asian Development Bank combined. Hence alternative sources of funding are available other than the US Congress.

Lets hope the WB Presidential election doesnt turn out to be a scripted event by Washington. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala deserves the post.