WED, JANUARY 09 2019-theG&BJournal- World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim Monday announced that he will be stepping down from his position after more than six years in which the institution’s shareholders provided strong support to multiple initiatives to ensure that the Bank Group retains strong leadership in the world of global development.
Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank CEO, will assume the role of interim President effective February 1.
Kim, 59 would leave the Bank three years before his tenure is due to expire, to join a private infrastructure firm. His exit presents a new challenge to US under President Donald Trump who has always criticised the Washington Based organisation for lending too much to China. The US has always picked the president of the Bank.
In his message to disengage from the Bank Kim said:
“It has been a great honor to serve as President of this remarkable institution, full of passionate individuals dedicated to the mission of ending extreme poverty in our lifetime,” said Kim. “The work of the World Bank Group is more important now than ever as the aspirations of the poor rise all over the world, and problems like climate change, pandemics, famine and refugees continue to grow in both their scale and complexity. Serving as President and helping position the institution squarely in the middle of all these challenges has been a great privilege.”
During his term, President Kim emphasized that one of the greatest needs in the developing world is infrastructure finance, and he pushed the Bank Group to maximize finance for development by working with a new cadre of private sector partners committed to building sustainable, climate-smart infrastructure in developing countries.
To that end, Kim has announced that, immediately after his departure, he will join a firm and focus on increasing infrastructure investments in developing countries. The details of this new position will be announced shortly.
In addition to working on infrastructure investments, Kim announced that he will also be re-joining the board of Partners In Health (PIH), an organization he co-founded more than 30 years ago.
“I look forward to working once again with my longtime friends and colleagues at PIH on a range of issues in global health and education. I will also continue my engagement with Brown University as a trustee of the Corporation and look forward to serving as a Senior Fellow at Brown’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.”
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