EAI President Sook-Jong Lee in the Council of Councils Expert Roundup
The selection of Dr. Jim Yong Kim as the twelfth President of the World Bank Group has been enthusiastically welcomed in South Korea as a symbol of the increasing visibility of Korean descendants in international society. It is also a good compromise for both the United States and developing countries, as he is the Bank's first president of non-European descent.
This decision should be appreciated by a diverse set of World Bank clients, donors, and other stakeholders as well. He is a man of great achievement with a distinguished career, including professorships at Harvard Medical School, a directorship at the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization (WHO), and, most recently, presidency of Dartmouth College. Throughout most of his career, he has demonstrated his leadership in the fields of health and medicine.
However, some critics held this expertise against him, arguing that the World Bank would be better served by a candidate with a background in economics. This argument is misleading when considering the complex nature of development. If economists were best-suited to develop poor countries, the Bank would have reduced poverty a lot faster and more substantially than the present suggests.
Eradicating poverty requires a holistic approach that includes health, the environment, psychology, and governance, in addition to the conventional solutions of supplementing income and building infrastructure. Dr. Kim's unique perspective as a Ph.D. in anthropology, his passion to create new organizations such as the community-focused Partners in Health, and his innovative treatment strategy at WHO are all positive signs that the World Bank will better fulfill its poverty reduction objectives.
Over the decades, the Bank has continued to reform its programs and institutional principles to sustain growth by empowering the poor and pragmatically focusing on results. President Jim Yong Kim's leadership philosophy fits well with this reform strategy. In his statement regarding his selection as president, Dr. Kim promised the Bank would respond more effectively to the needs of its diverse constituencies, deliver more powerful results, prioritize evidence-based solutions, and amplify the voices of developing countries. Under his leadership, we anticipate the Bank will provide more effective global governance in combating the developing world's poverty and foster sustainable growth.