President Kim,Congratulations on your nomination to the presidency of the World Bank. I think that President Barack Obama made an excellent choice in his decision to nominate you to this most important position.
The breadth of experience and knowledge that you will bring to the table is undeniably impressive: co-founder of Partners in Health, an MD and a PhD in anthropology from Harvard University, a MacArthur Fellow, director of the HIV/AIDS department of the World Health Organization, chair of the department of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School and 17th President of Dartmouth College. To merely state your background is to make the case for your nomination to the presidency of the World Bank.
Given that you have the support of the United States and Europe, it is a near certainty that your candidacy will prevail. While I, and presumably most of the Dartmouth community, would be delighted with this outcome, I find it very hard to support the process by which you will be confirmed. Ever since the inception of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in 1944, Americans and Europeans have always voted to ensure that the head of the World Bank is an American and the head of the IMF is a European. I find it increasingly difficult to support this particular arrangement. While you are definitely suited for the position, it is entirely possible that, in the future, the best candidate may well not be from the United States. In this case, it would be a mistake to appoint an American to the post if there were a superior non-American candidate.
A few years ago, there was talk at the G-20 about making the world's major economic institutions more inclusive. Nonetheless, last year, then-French Minister of Finance Christine Lagarde was appointed as managing director of the IMF with U.S. and European backing, while alternative candidates appear not to have been seriously considered. It is disappointing that Stanley Fischer, the head of the Israeli central bank, was disqualified on an age technicality and that Agustin Carstens, the head of the Mexican central bank, was passed over. To be sure, Lagarde had a very impressive background and has done a good job since her appointment to the IMF. Nonetheless, given the great importance of the head of the IMF, it is unfortunate that the three candidates were judged primarily by their nationalities and their ages rather than on their individual merits.
To be clear, I am not advocating that you be denied presidency of the World Bank simply because you are American. As Francois Bourguignon, Nicholas Stern and Joseph Stiglitz, all former chief economists and senior vice presidents of the World Bank, wrote in The Financial Times, the international community should not "swap an arbitrary rule, by which the president of the World Bank must be American, for another, only slightly less arbitrary, by which he or she should come from a developing country."
Nonetheless, the other two candidates for the presidency of the World Bank this year also have impressive credentials. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, currently the Nigerian finance minister, received a PhD in regional economic development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, previously served as Nigeria's foreign minister and, over the last 30 years, has worked in many positions in the World Bank, most recently as managing director. As finance minister, Okonjo-Iweala has worked to reduce corruption and improve transparency, as well as attempted to end Nigeria's wasteful fuel subsidy. Jose Antonio Ocampo, currently a professor at Columbia University, received a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University; he has previously served in numerous positions in both the Colombian government (including in agriculture and finance departments) and the United Nations, most recently as the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs. In future years, nominees like Okonjo-Iweala or Ocampo could be the best choice for the job.
Regardless, you will almost certainly become the next president of the World Bank. This appointment is well-deserved; you, your family and the wider Dartmouth community have every reason to be very proud of this accomplishment. I have high hopes for your time at the World Bank, and I wish you and your family all the best.
