Who will be the next

Who will be the next president of the World Bank?

The controversial World Bank plays a key role in world anti-poverty efforts. Its presidents serve five year terms; the current president's second term will be up in 2005. Sebastian Mallaby of the Washington Post wonders who will replace him: "The World Bank's Force of Nature"

"...There are no officially declared candidates as yet, and the winner won't be known until after the U.S. election. But the rumor mill is churning hard: There's whispering of Powell and Clinton, but also of Robert Zoellick, President Bush's trade czar, and Stan Fischer, former No. 2 at the International Monetary Fund.

And then there is another candidate, who should not be overlooked. The man who replaces Jim Wolfensohn, the bank's larger-than-life incumbent, may turn out to be none other than that very same Jim Wolfensohn..."

Mallaby's column is about the political in-fighting for a position like this; his thesis is that if Wolfensohn wants it, he will be a formidable contender.

Mallaby has just written a biography of Wolfensohn, focusing on his tenure at the World Bank. (The World's Banker: A Story of Failed States, Financial Crises and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations).

This week's Economist (premium content) gives Mallaby's book a good review: "James Wolfensohn. Damned if you do" (" �The World's Banker� sets out to be a biography of Mr Wolfensohn, but it is really as much about the rich world's relations with the poor. Mr Mallaby writes about this vast topic with vigour and wit, and in a [reasonable - Ben] tone...Mr Wolfensohn comes across as filled with �a roaring restless hunger to do all the things that man can do, and to succeed at all of them.� On the negative side, he is so vain that he prefers to shout at his subordinates than share credit with them. He probably won't like this book. But anyone else who cares about development will.")

The anonymous reviewer has this (probably not completely fair, but entertaining) take on NGOs:

"Unelected, unaccountable non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are generally assumed to be honest and virtuous. The World Bank, which does more to fight poverty than any other public body, is generally viewed as the villain. This is partly because it makes mistakes, but mostly because it is besieged by single-issue fanatics in the West who condemn it whenever it fails to make their issue its top priority.

James Wolfensohn, the World Bank's president since 1995, has made strenuous efforts to accommodate the NGO swarm. Every infrastructure project the Bank funds must meet rich-world standards: nothing pretty may be bulldozed unless strictly necessary, and no worker may be asked to do anything that a Californian might find demeaning. As a result, fewer dams, roads and flood barriers are built in poor countries. More poor people stay poor, live in darkness and die younger..."

The reviewer suggests that Mallaby argues that Wolfensohn has been too willing to compromise with NGO objectives, to the extent of losing track of the needs of poor countries.

Mallaby spent 13 years with the Economist and has been with the Post since 1999. Many of his columns deal with political economy. A selection of his columns may be found here: "Sebastian Mallaby". These columns are good. I especially enjoyed last Sunday's "It Pays for the U.S. to Go to the Bank" (contrasting Clinton administration efforts to use World Bank resources to facilitate peace in the Balkans with Bush Administration failure to use it to help in Iraq), "Trade and the Honest Candidate" (a critique of Kerry's speech at August's Democratic convention), and "Kit's Caboodle" (on the politics of the Corps of Engineers project to improve navigation on the upper Mississippi). But many of the others are worth while.