Three candidates for World Bank

The World Bank on Friday confirmed it had received three nominations for the institution's presidency, including an unconventional choice from the United States, which has dominated the bank since its inception.

US President Barack Obama nominated Jim Yong Kim, president of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, to be the next World Bank president. Many consider him an unconventional choice because of his broad development experience and his innovative approach to fighting the spread of HIV and tuberculosis.

"It's time for a development professional to lead the world's largest development agency," Obama said on Friday when he announced his choice in the Rose Garden.

Kim, who was born in South Korea and moved to the US at the age of five, is a Harvard-trained doctor and former director of the department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization.

Taking on the Americans

A US citizen has consistently held the top job at the World Bank since it was first founded in 1944, whilst the International Monetary Fund has been traditionally headed by Europeans. World leaders and economists from the developing world are said to be keen to challenge European and US dominance over the major international economic institutions.

Jose Antonio Ocampo, a former Colombian finance minister who is currently a professor at Columbia University in New York, was nominated by Brazil on behalf of a contingency of Latin American countries.

South Africa confirmed on Friday that it had put forward globally respected Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who also served as a managing director at the World Bank until last year, as the African candidate.

Uncertainty remains

Ocampo's candidacy was thrown into uncertainty when current Colombian Finance Minister Juan Carlos Echeverry suggested Ocampo stood little chance of being awarded the post because another Colombian is already head of the Washington-based Inter-American Development Bank.

Nonetheless, Carlos Cozendey, secretary of foreign affairs at Brazil's finance ministry, said both Ocampo and Okonjo-Iweala were "great" candidates and their candidacies represented improved coordination within the developing world.

"We continue to believe that the president should be chosen based on merit, and it is very positive to have an open competition process," Cozendey said.

The battle for the presidency commenced after the incumbent, Robert Zoellick, announced his intention to step down when his term ends in June.

sej, ng/dfm (Reuters, AFP)