Jim Wolfensohn has been a remarkable phenomenon to behold, bringing talent, dynamism, intellect, and boundless energy to the World Bank. His 10 years at the Bank have left a clear mark. He will be remembered for his many outstanding contributions.
They include: bringing “the cancer of corruption” into the open as a barrier to development; the decentralization of the Bank’s programming efforts - moving country directors from Washington to borrowing countries to make Bank programmes more responsive and relevant to countries’ own priorities; and a wider dialogue with all major stakeholders – including governments, NGOs, bilateral donors, and the private sector.
One under-appreciated but nevertheless significant contribution has been Wolfensohn’s initiative to institute regular meetings of the presidents of all of the major regional development banks and the IMF. This has helped promote collaboration, define roles, and better leverage resources of major development players.
Wolfensohn’s successor will have a number of challenges, beginning with the urgent need to set priorities among the many initiatives, policies, and partnerships, initiated under his watch. For example, corruption’s continuing drag on growth must be addressed in even greater depth. The debt burdens held by many of the very poorest countries continue to impede their ability to grow. Progress has been made in the HIPC initiative, for the highly indebted poorest countries, but deeper and faster debt relief is called for, given the right policy environment. Wolfensohn has rightly led the Bank to increase its investments in critically needed infrastructure, seeing such investments as one of the requirements for growth and poverty reduction.
The new president must continue to listen to and balance the views of all the major stakeholders - the donor and borrowing shareholder governments, the full range of development partners, including the private sector, other donor agencies, NGOs and civil society. Getting the message out – forthrightly communicating achievements and setbacks in improving development effectiveness and impact – will help deepen understanding and support for the Bank’s work.
Independent evaluations of Bank policies and programmes, to supplement the work done by the Bank’s own Operations Evaluation Department, would add to the credibility of the findings. Bringing out the best and tapping into the talents of the hard working staff, and consistently seeking their views before undertaking change or launching a new initiative is always wise.
But perhaps the most important challenge of all is to ensure that the World Bank continues to evolve meaningfully in its role as the only truly global development bank, quickly and courageously responding to global needs, such as assuming a leadership role in combating HIV/AIDs, playing a strategic role in reconstruction after disasters such as the recent earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean, and making progress on the underlying difficult issues of development such as the most effective path for development in weak or failed states and the Bank’s role in that process.
Is this the role for another renaissance man? Or woman? My vote would be for a superb manager, an excellent listener and communicator, with a deep knowledge of development issues. She or he will have the challenge of standing on some very tall shoulders, indeed.