MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Developing countries nominate top candidates for the World Bank presidency

Jose Antonio Ocampo, Colombian former Finance minister and a recognizesd economist

The US is under intense pressure to nominate a top candidate for the World Bank presidency after developing countries put forward two credible contenders of their own.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian finance minister, and José Antonio Ocampo, the former finance minister of Colombia, will be nominated as candidates for the presidency before the deadline on Friday.

Since its creation in 1944, the president of the World Bank has always been an American, but developing countries are pressing for a merit-based competition. The US will lose legitimacy if it foists a low-calibre leader on the institution when there are well-qualified candidates from developing countries.

“The candidacies are more than symbolic” said Mr Ocampo. “They are a testament that developing countries can put up good and credible candidates -- perhaps as good as or better than the US candidates.”

The US is expected to put forward a candidate before Friday's deadline. Leading options are Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary who has a heavyweight economic reputation but some opponents in the US and abroad, and Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN. Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, has been nominated by some smaller developing countries.

In contrast to the recent battle to lead the International Monetary Fund, which was never in real doubt as French finance minister Christine Lagarde raced around the world to secure support, developing countries are organized to challenge a procession to the World Bank presidency.

“We as emerging markets and developing countries have been making a concerted effort to identify our most qualified and competent candidates,” said Amar Bhattacharya, director of the G24 office in Washington.

The G24 is an economic umbrella group for the largest developing countries, and the Brics group of Brazil, Russia, India and China has also been active in debating candidates.

Ms Okonjo-Iweala is a former World Bank managing director now serving her second term as Nigeria's finance minister. South Africa and several other African countries are backing Ms Okonjo-Iweala.

Arvind Subramanian, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said that Ms Okonjo-Iweala was one of his top candidates for the job. “She has a lot of hands-on development experience with the big issues of governance and corruption,” he said.

Another emerging market candidate could appear before Friday. The big test, however, will be whether all the developing countries can coalesce around a single contender once the US has put forward a name.

“All the other major international institutions have open competitions. The UN does, so does the WTO, the OECD. The IMF and the World Bank are very anomalous in that regard,” said Mr Ocampo. “We have joined this race in the expectation that this time it would be different.”