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The World Bank has chosen Korean-American physician, Mr Jim Yong Kim, as its next President.
The 52-year-old Mr Kim will succeed incumbent President, Mr Robert Zoellick, a former US diplomat who will demit office in June at the end of his five-year term.
The US has held the Presidency in the bank’s entire 68-year history, while a European has always led its sister institution the International Monetary Fund.
But emerging and developing economies have been contesting this informal arrangement at both the IMF and World Bank and presenting their own candidates.
Mr Kim won the post after unprecedented challenge for the top job at the development lender from Nigeria’s Finance Minister, Ms Ngoji Okonjo-Iweala, and Colombia’s former Finance Minister, Mr Jose Antonio Ocampo.
Unlike the previous heads of World Bank, Mr Kim is not a banker, politician or a diplomat. He is a trained physician and an anthropologist.
Mr Kim was a former director of the World Health Organisation and a co-founder of the global non-profit Partners in Health.
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