Tasks for next World Bank chief: heal rifts, tackle poverty
Bush taps Robert Zoellick, a veteran of both Wall Street and Washington, to replace Wolfowitz at the World Bank.
By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the May 31, 2007 edition
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WASHINGTON - Robert Zoellick is a veteran of Washington's and Wall Street's top levels. As a US government official, he helped negotiate the reunification of Germany in 1990 and later smoothed China's entry into the World Trade Organization. More recently, he's brokered business deals throughout Asia as an investment banker for Goldman Sachs.
But now he's in line for a job that might be the toughest of his career: head of the World Bank. He'll have to heal rifts opened by the ouster of current bank president Paul Wolfowitz, while tackling the crucial issue of poverty in the world's poorest countries. And he'll be working in a truly international institution – an environment perhaps like none he's experienced before.
"The World Bank poses a management challenge. This isn't like managing a private company," says Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. "The staff does not work for you. You can have the best ideas, and if you can't get them executed, it doesn't accomplish anything."
Mr. Wolfowitz is stepping down in the wake of findings by a special bank panel that he violated bank rules in arranging a transfer and salary increase in 2005 for his companion, Shaha Riza, a bank employee.
Controversy over Wolfowitz divided bank employees and strained US relations with European nations, which favored his ouster.
At a White House ceremony Wednesday announcing his nomination, Mr. Zoellick acknowledged the bank's recent difficulties.
"For all involved there are frustrations, anxieties, and tensions that could inhibit the future," Zoellick said. "This is understandable but not without remedy."
The bank needs to get past this discord, he added. "I believe the World Bank's best days are still to come," he said.
Zoellick's nomination must still be approved by the bank's 24-member board of directors. However, according to an informal tradition observed since the founding of the world's current international financial organizations in the wake of World War II, the United States chooses the head of the World Bank, while Europeans pick the leader of the International Monetary Fund.
Some experts had hoped that following Wolfowitz's problems, the US would opt to change this method of governance and open up the World Bank selection process – perhaps by submitting a list of candidates from which the bank board could pick.
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