Selecting the World Bank President (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
Revised May 10, 2023 |
| Report Number |
R42463 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Martin A. Weiss, Specialist in International Trade and Finance |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
| Older Revisions |
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Summary:
On January 7, 2018, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced that he would resign by
February 1, three years before the expiration of his second five-year term in 2022. Following his
resignation, Dr. Kim is to join Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a private equity fund that
invests in projects in advanced and developing countries. Prior to his nomination to the World
Bank by President Barack Obama in 2012, Dr. Kim served as the President of Dartmouth College.
The nomination period for the next president ends on March 14, after which the Executive Board
is to select three candidates for interviews. To date, the only candidate is David Malpass, the
Treasury Department’s Undersecretary for International Affairs, nominated by President Trump
on February 6, 2019. Following the interviews, the Executive Board is to select the next
president, something which it aims to do before the spring meetings in April 2019.
Since its founding after World War II, the presidency of the World Bank has been held by a
citizen of the United States, the Bank’s largest shareholder. According to an informal agreement
among World Bank member countries, a U.S. candidate is chosen as the president of the World
Bank and a European candidate (typically French or German) is appointed as the Managing
Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The formal requirement for the selection of the World Bank president is that the Executive
Directors appoint, by at least a 50% majority, an individual who is neither a member of the Board
of Governors nor Board of Executive Directors. There are no requirements on how individuals
are selected, on what criteria, or by what process they are vetted. Although the Executive
Directors may select the IMF Managing Director by a simple majority vote, they historically aim
to reach agreement by consensus. With these factors combined, the custom guaranteeing
European leadership at the IMF and American leadership at the World Bank has remained in
place.
This custom has been subject to increasing criticism during the past two decades. The first line of
criticism is directed at the current distribution of voting power, which critics contend does not
account for the increasing integration of developing countries into the global economy. A second
line of criticism is directed at the method of selecting World Bank and IMF leadership, which
critics argue, elevates nationality above merit and undermines the legitimacy and effectiveness of
the institutions. Calls for a more open, transparent, and merit-based leadership selection process
have been made consistently in the past, and at times have been incorporated into communiqués
of various summits, but have yet to change the leadership selection process at either institution.
