??? JIM YONG KIM, a surprising nominee of U.S President Barack Obama, was selected Monday in a vote by the World Bank’s 25-member executive board. He’ll succeed Robert Zoellick, who’s stepping down after a five-year term. ??? Kim issued a statement accepting the job from Lima, Peru, his last stop on a global tour that has taken him to Africa, Asia and Latin America to seek support from developing countries. He praised his two opponents from developing countries and said his goal as president would be to “seek a new alignment of the World Bank with a rapidly changing world.” ??? The World Bank’s selection of Kim to be its next president returned a spotlight to the agency and the grip the United States has held on its leadership. ??? U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner praised the selection, saying Kim “has a lifetime of experience solving complex problems.” He said Kim “will help breathe new life into the World Bank’s efforts” to promote economic growth around the world. ??? Zoellick called Kim, whose appointment breaks a tradition of bankers and diplomats heading the bank, “an impressive and accomplished individual.” ??? “Jim has seen poverty and vulnerability first-hand, through his impressive work in developing countries,” Zoellick said. “His rigorous, science-based drive for results will be invaluable for the World Bank Group as it modernizes to better serve client countries in overcoming poverty.” ??? Developing countries had put forward two candidates for the post: Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and former Colombian Finance Minister Jose Antonio Ocampo. Both argued that it was time to break the hold the United States has had on the World Bank job and provide a greater voice for developing nations. On April 13, Ocampo announced that he was withdrawing and throwing his support to Okonjo-Iweala. ??? The World Bank didn’t reveal the board’s vote. But it said “the final nominees received support from different member countries,” indicating that Kim’s selection was not unanimous. ??? Oxfam, the global anti-poverty group, complained that the process was tainted by the fact that a U.S. candidate was again selected in a closed process. For nearly seven decades, the World Bank has always been led by an American, while the International Monetary Fund has always been led by a European. ??? As a public health advocate, Kim has a reputation as a data- and design-driven technocrat, one who pushes for programs to ease poverty and cure disease to prove their efficacy. ??? While working with Partners in Health in Lima, Peru, in the mid-1990s, Kim helped develop a treatment program for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, the first large-scale treatment of that disease in a poor country. He also spearheaded the successful effort to reduce the price of the drugs used to treat this form of tuberculosis. ??? That technocratic reputation followed Kim to Dartmouth College, colleagues said, where he is also known for encouraging students to think globally. ??? He is also known for his self-deprecating sense of humor, cracking witticisms in meetings and even singing and dancing at a Dartmouth student show. ??? Kim and the other candidates were interviewed by the World Bank’s board last week. In his statement to the board, Kim said he had worked throughout his career for “reform and change” and would continue those efforts at the World Bank. ??? Obama’s announcement March 23 that Kim would be the U.S. nominee for the World Bank post came as a surprise. ??? Kim’s name was not among those widely bandied about since Zoellick announced his plans to move on last month. ??? ‘The leader of the World Bank should have a deep understanding of both the role that development plays in the world and the importance of creating conditions where assistance is no longer needed,” Obama said on April 13. “It’s time for a development professional to lead the world’s largest development agency.” ??? Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University and a former top official at the International Monetary Fund, said Kim’s medical background gave him vital experience in solving problems facing developing nations. ??? “He will need to dispel any notion that he is there to serve the interests of the United States rather than the interests of developing countries,” Prasad said. ??? The Group of 20 countries has called for a fairer, more transparent selection process for the top posts at the World Bank and the IMF, and the World Bank itself has reaffirmed its commitment to an open and merit-based process. ??? “We are trying to ensure that we start having a process whereby we can choose the most qualified person, regardless of nationality,” said Amar Bhattacharya, the director of the Group of 24, an umbrella group of developing countries. ??? The response to Kim’s nomination was largely positive. But some development experts raised some questions about his experience and his vision for the institution. ??? “Dr. Kim clearly had experience perfecting individual programs and working in very poor countries,” said Nancy Birdsall, the president of the Center for Global Development, a research organization based in Washington. But she added that it was not clear how Kim would tackle transnational issues affecting the poor, like climate change and corruption. She also questioned how he viewed the bank’s role in rapidly growing emerging economies, like China, Brazil, India and Turkey. ??? Born in Seoul, South Korea in 1959, Jim Yong Kim moved with his family to the United States at the age of 5 and grew up in Muscatine, Iowa. His father taught dentistry at the University of Iowa, where his mother received her Ph.D. in philosophy. He graduated from Brown University, earned a medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a doctorate in anthropology from Harvard University. ??? In 1987, along with Paul Farmer and others, he co-founded Partners in Health, which provides health care to poor residents of Haiti and in five other countries. ??? Beginning in 1993, Kim served as a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, eventually holding professorships in medicine, social medicine and human rights. ??? In March 2004, he was appointed as director of WHO’s HIV/AIDS department, overseeing all of WHO’s work related to HIV/AIDS, focusing on initiatives to help developing countries scale up their treatment, prevention, and care programs. ??? At WHO, Kim was instrumental in creating and implementing the 3 by 5 Initiative, which saw millions of people in the developing world gain access to anti-retroviral therapy for HIV for the first time. ??? The initiative reached its goal in 2007. In 2006 Kim was named as one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” for his work on that campaign and his efforts combating drug-resistant tuberculosis in Peru. ??? In March 2009, Kim was named the 17th president of Dartmouth College, becoming the first Asian-American to assume the post of president at an Ivy League institution. ??? Kim is married to Younsook Lim, a pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital in Boston, and has worked on improving health care services for children in Africa.The couple has two young sons.(SD-Agencies) | 