World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim heads for 2nd term

Washington, Sept 15: World Bank President Jim Yong Kim effectively won a second five-year term after nominations to lead the global development bank closed with no other candidates proposed.

The World Bank executive board said in a statement that, following official procedures, it would formally meet with Kim as a candidate "with the expectation of completing the selection process by the 2016 Annual Meetings," which take place on October 7-9.

Kim, 56, a Korean-American medical doctor who has focused the World bank on programs to reduce extreme poverty, earned solid backing for a second term from the United States, France, Germany, China, and other major shareholders of the bank.

But as with his first nomination in 2012, the bank was criticized from inside and outside for not truly opening the selection process to all comers and not managing it in a fully transparent mode.

Following an unwritten rule, since the World Bank was created in the wake of World War II to help rebuild the global economy, its leader has always been an American chosen by Washington.

In 2012, Kim was the first American candidate to face competition when Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala also contended for the presidency. Kim's first term ends on June 30, 2017.

PTI