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World Bank board approves Wolfowitz
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-01 08:46
WASHINGTON - The World Bank's board on Thursday unanimously approved the
nomination of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraq
war, to be the next president of the 184-nation development bank.
US President Bush earlier this month surprised the international community by
recommending Wolfowitz for the job. Wolfowitz's hard-line foreign policy stance
has made him a target of critics at home and abroad. Wolfowitz, 61, will take
the helm of the development bank on June 1 to serve a five-year term..
Photo provided by
the World bank shows current World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn,
right, greeting World Bank President-designate Paul Wolfowitz prior to a
meeting at World Bank in Washington, Thursday, March 31, 2005. [AP]
| The bank's stated mission is to fight poverty and
improve the living standards of people in developing countries. It lends around
$20 billion a year to developing countries for various projects, including
roads, schools and fighting AIDS.
"I want to thank the board for their vote of confidence," Wolfowitz said in a
statement after the decision. "It is humbling to be entrusted with the
leadership of this critically important international institution."
The United States is the bank's largest shareholder. The bank traditionally
has had an American president. The unanimous approval came from the bank's
24-member board.
Since his March 16 nomination by Bush, Wolfowitz, seeking to quell criticism
over his selection, has reached out. He has telephoned Bono, the Irish rock star
who is a vocal advocate for helping the world's poor. He has met with many
countries' representatives to the World Bank and made a trip to Europe, where he
won the endorsement of European Union governments. Support from Europe was
important because hostility there still lingers over the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Bush's choice of Wolfowitz has especially raised the hackles of some
international aid organizations and other groups. They question his development
credentials and worry that he would try to use the development bank to help the
United States' friends and punish its enemies. Some of those critics showed up
on a gray morning to protest the choice of Wolfowitz outside the World Bank's
headquarters Thursday.
Wolfowitz has sought to counter those concerns. He has said that poverty
reduction and economic development were the bank's core businesses and that he
would not pursue any political agenda.
"I really believe the mission of the bank," Wolfowitz had told The Associated
Press in a March 16 interview. "I think one of the challenges of the
institution, and therefore, for me, is how to make sure it makes the best use of
the considerable resources at its disposal, which are both financial and human."
While critics question his development credentials, Wolfowitz has said his
management experience at the Pentagon and his diplomatic experience at the State
Department prepared him for the job. At State, he was assistant secretary for
East Asia and U.S. ambassador to Indonesia.
Wolfowitz also has been criticized on Capitol Hill for underestimating the
number of U.S. troops needed in Iraq and for understating, during testimony to a
House panel, the number of troops killed in Iraq. He also was criticized for
predicting before the invasion that Iraqi oil would generate $50 billion to $100
billion over two to three years, limiting U.S. war costs. Instead, Iraq
generated just $17 billion in oil revenues in the first 19 months after the
invasion.
The installation of Wolfowitz allows the Bush administration to puts its
imprint on the development bank, which employs some 10,000 people worldwide.
James Wolfensohn, the current president, will step down at the end of May,
when his second, five-year term concludes.
Wolfensohn helped engineer a number of changes in the bank's philosophy and
the way it operates. He pushed to put greater emphasis on "home grown"
development planning, trying to connect the bank closer to the countries it
seeks to help. He pushed for debt relief for the world's poorest countries. His
1996 "cancer of corruption" speech focused a new light on corruption as an
impediment to development that must be addressed.
"I will make every effort to ensure that our transition period is successful,
so Paul can hit the ground running on June 1," Wolfensohn said.
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