Wolfensohn 'at odds' with White House

[cal04]

OUTGOING World Bank chief James Wolfensohn said today he spent his last five years at the helm of the development agency mostly at odds with the US Bush administration, which kept him at arm's length. "The Bush administration had less confidence in me ... although I am saddened by it because I was never partial to Democrats or Republicans," Mr Wolfensohn, who will be replaced by administration insider Paul Wolfowitz in June, said in an interview at his Washington office.

The Australian-born Wolfensohn, a Clinton appointee who became an American citizen to take the job, failed to win a third term when the Bush administration made it clear it wanted its own person to take control at the development bank.
Mr Wolfowitz fit the bill and his appointment was confirmed on March 31 despite quiet misgivings by some member countries about his role as an architect of the Iraq war. Mr Wolfensohn clashed with the Bush administration over how the bank gave out funds to poor countries.

By tradition, an American leads the World Bank while a European takes the top post at its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund. Mr Wolfensohn said he advised Mr Wolfowitz, who is in the process of moving from the Pentagon, to listen and not jump to conclusions. "He should take six months in which he tries to get to know an extraordinary complex set of issues and it seems to me that is what he is doing," he said.

According to Mr Wolfensohn, his successor says he does not plan any major directional shifts for the bank, "and it will be my hope that he doesn't". "The analysis and diagnosis of what needs to be done is already there," he said. "I don't think if he does three more years of analyses he will come up with a different answer.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12841299%255E1702,00.html

[KamaAina]

1. You have to be a U.S. citizen to be head of the World Bank?!

The Australian-born Wolfensohn, a Clinton appointee who became an American citizen to take the job,

:wtf:

I understand that, by tradition, the U.S. President (or, in the present case, the nearest facsimile thereof) gets to make the nomination; we are, after all, the Bank's largest shareholder. But why must the nominee be a U.S. citizen? That's messed up on so many levels. I begin to understand why many countries in the Global South view the World Bank (and IMF) with deep suspicion.

Factoid: I recently discovered that an acquaintance here was Wolfensohn's classmate at Harvard B-school. That's what led me to click in the first place.