CGD Calls For Paul Wolfowitz To Resign From World Bank
Published by Staff April 14th, 2007 in World.
The following is a statement by Nancy Birdsall, President of the Center for Global Development:
When Paul Wolfowitz began his presidency of the World Bank in 2005, I and others set out an agenda for him — to rescue the World Bank from a slow decline into irrelevance and obscurity (see the CGD working group report: The Hardest Job in the World: Five Crucial Tasks for the New President of the World Bank).
We defined a tough agenda of change for the member governments that own the Bank and control its future. We called on the new president — through intellectual leadership, charm, good judgment and, yes, horse-trading — to lead the shareholders in pushing through change. After all, for all its faults, the World Bank is still the single best-placed institution to address a key challenge of the 21st century: the development and transformation of societies where poverty and disease affect billions of people.
One of those five tasks was reform of the governance of the World Bank itself — to be more representative and thus more legitimate. At the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Rodrigo de Rato has successfully initiated such a process. The leading wedge of such reform is, as we wrote in The Hardest Job in the World, to “formalize a mechanism for choosing the next president that is credible, rule-based and transparent.”
Today, finance and development ministers from around the world gather in Washington for the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the IMF. But they will not be talking about reform at the Bank, or about the singular challenge of ending poverty and transforming societies where five out of every six people in the world live. Instead, they will be talking about the tangle of messes surrounding Paul Wolfowitz.
If only for that reason, it would be better now for Mr. Wolfowitz to resign — for the benefit of the institution that he serves, and for the billions of people that it serves. He has become a distraction, not a leader, at a moment when leadership is sorely needed. There are other reasons, too: With shareholders and staff questioning his judgment on the conflict of interest issue, he cannot lead by influence and inspiration, as the World Bank’s global mission so obviously requires.
Poverty, climate change, terrorism, cross-national money laundering, drug and sex trafficking, avian flu and more… We are in a new and dangerous global century. We need a strong World Bank to wield its financial and technical weight in a concerted collective attack on these global challenges.
By resigning now, Mr. Wolfowitz can rescue for himself a lasting legacy. He can do so by linking his own resignation to a clarion call for a transparent and openly competitive process in the selection of his successor, in which it is merit not politics and power that matter.
Source: Center for Global Development
Maybe Paul should have put his long time girlfriend in charge if replacing his socks instead of a high position in the world bank and he wouldn’t be in the mess
Unfortunately this is how the international organizations operate at all levels. Jobs are not given on meritocracy but through connections. And Nancy Birdsall should speak. Look at her organization. Does it look like the face of development to you? They speak of African development. Is there even one African employee?
One correction. I asked is there even one African employee? OK. Visa problems. Is there even one African American employee at a high level? There were at least three top level African Americans including Darrius Mans at the World Bank. I dont see them anywhere in CDG.
The world decides at the end of the day. The Neo-Con hawks should realize that it’s not them that decides the way the world works. what an irony, the man who tried to “clean” up the world is himself is a monster who seeks blood of thousands of peoples: Iraqis and the poor American soldiers who are in harms way in Iraq. Along with Al Queda, the Neo Conservatives are the real enemies of the United States and the world. These people should be discarded from all positions. may god help up