Dartmouth’s President Dr Kim Named World Bank Head

Jim Yong Kim is president of the Ivy League university Dartmouth. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Korean-American Dr Jim Yong Kim, president of the Ivy League university Dartmouth, has been expectedly elected the next president of the World Bank, beating Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

The bank's board of directors said the multiple candidacies "enriched the discussion of the role of the President and of the World Bank Group's future direction."

The 52-year-old will succeed the current World Bank head Robert Zoellick, and start serving a five-year term from 1 July.

Kim will continue a more-than-60-year-tradition of the bank to be always led by an American, part of a tacit agreement between the United States and its Western European allies. Europe, in turn, has maintained control of the International Monetary Fund.

The United States and Europe together have roughly 50% of voting shares, which are based on money paid into the bank.

Jim Yong Kim was born in South Korea and grew up in Muscatine, Iowa, after emigrating to the United States as a child.

Kim, a doctor who built his reputation developing public health programs for poor countries, has been criticized for lack of suitable background to run the bank.

He's currently the president of Dartmouth University, having previously worked at the World Health Organization and co-founded the non-profit organization Partners In Health.

The institution, created in 1944, provides billions of dollars worth of financial assistance for projects worldwide ranging from health to education to private-sector development.

In an interview with the BBC, Jim Yong Kim said that capitalist "market-based growth is a priority for every single country".

According to him that was the best way to create jobs and lift people out of poverty.

Dr Kim told the BBC that while he may lack political know-how, his background as physician would help him in his new role.

He explained that he worked for more than 25 years in developing countries. At the same time, he has been lauded for his pioneering role in treating HIV/Aids and reducing the impact of tuberculosis in the developing world.

"I am a physician. Physicians work on evidence, rather than working from a single ideology, rather than working from a particular political point-of-view," Dr Kim told the BBC.

He said that he would take into account the cultural and social peculiarities of various regions to ensure that the World Bank's various schemes achieved the desired results.

"If we can focus on the evidence of what is actually working and adapt those evidence-based interventions to local context, I think we can be very successful."

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