More than one crisis at World Bank
The controversy over Paul Wolfowitz raises questions about the US role and the bank's future.
from the May 15, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Calls for merit-based selection
Instead, both the bank and the IMF should have a merit-based selection process, says Dr. Bradford. That way, the bank's president reasonably could say they represent the world community as a whole. "The person has to be a world figure," he says.
Stanley Fischer, a former professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and World Bank vice president who is currently governor of the Bank of Israel is one such possible candidate.
Is World Bank necessary?
Other critics of the bank have taken the opportunity of the Wolfowitz crisis to question whether the World Bank is even necessary. Columnist George Will, for instance, wrote on May 10 that "the bank's rationale, never strong, has evaporated."
It's hard to show that bank loans produce growth, Will argues. At the same time, most loans go to the middle-income countries, who today are perfectly capable of attracting private-sector money on their own.
The bank's defenders say that its financial strength and expertise will be essential if the world is to even approach the Millennium Development Goal of halving global poverty by 2015.
"But the bank faces some real challenges in adapting its internal governance structure and instruments – put in place 60 years ago – to dramatic changes in the global economy and in the relative power and needs of its shareholders," says the Center for Global Development report.
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