MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Emerging economies decided to challenge US predominance in the World Bank

March 23 is the nominees’ deadline to replace Robert Zoellick

Emerging economies said on Sunday that they will challenge a tradition that has placed an American at the head of the World Bank for decades, as the President Obama administration shows sensitivity to the need for change at global institutions.

Emerging economies said it was time to break a decades-old tradition that has long shut out candidates from the developing world and kept an American at the head of the World Bank and a European leader at the International Monetary Fund.

The problem emerging economies face is finding a candidate willing to challenge the United States, which is the largest and most influential shareholder in the World Bank and IMF.

“I am sure the United States will nominate an excellent candidate but it is imperative that the process this time be contestable,” said Amar Bhattacharya, director of the G24 Secretariat, whose members include major developing and emerging economies.

“There are very strong candidates in the developing world. It is important, therefore, that emerging and developing countries make every effort to identify suitable candidates from the developing world,” he added.

Bhattacharya said emerging and developing countries would try to come up with a list of candidates by the deadline for nominees on March 23.

The politically-thorny issue of whether the leadership of the World Bank should be reserved for an American was not formally raised during G20 meetings of finance ministers in Mexico City at the weekend.

But U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner privately sounded out ministers from emerging economies on the sidelines on qualities necessary to head the World Bank, but did not say who the U.S. candidate might be.

Addressing a closing news conference on Sunday, Geithner made no direct comment about the World Bank but appeared to send a message that Washington recognized the need for change to reflect the growing economic might of emerging economies.

“The US has played a major role, and has been very supportive, of reforms in the IMF and other international financial institutions to significantly increase the voice and vote of the major emerging economies in those institutions,” Geithner said.

“That is very much in the interest of the United States, and certainly in the interest of the broader legitimacy and effectiveness of those institutions. We are very committed to making sure those reforms take effect and we can build on those reforms in the future,” he added.

Three people most often mentioned as possible U.S. nominees are all American: former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice. The State Department has said Clinton would not be taking the job.

“They can put forward their candidate but rather than it becoming a destructive exercise, it should be a constructive process to that we attempt to build consensus on who the candidate should be,” South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said.

Groupings such as the BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - have struggled to come up with candidates given the long-standing dominance of Europe and the US in the institutions.