World

World Bank suffering ‘leadership crisis,’ staff say

Staff at the World Bank delivered a broadside against its sitting president this week, saying the global lender faced a “crisis of leadership” and risked irrelevance on the world stage.

The letter called for the selection process to consider men and women on the basis of clear criteria in a transparent manner.

Since taking office in 2012, Kim has undertaken a cross-cutting structural reform which has left some staff members uneasy. Internal surveys have shown that large proportions of Bank staff feel distrustful of senior management.

“At the World Bank Group, we preach principles of good governance, transparency, diversity, international competition and merit-based selection,” said the letter from the staff association, which represents more than 15,000 employees.

“Unfortunately, none of these principles have applied to the appointment of past World Bank Group Presidents.”

“Instead, we have accepted decades of backroom deals which, twelve times in a row, selected an American male,” the letter said.

Following an unwritten rule, European governments choose the head of the International Monetary Fund while the United States names the president of the World Bank.

The Bank is also facing competition from other actors in the development world, such as China.

The annual internal employee surveys show the Bank is “experiencing a crisis of leadership,” the letter said.

The letter called for the selection process to consider men and women on the basis of clear criteria in a transparent manner.

“The world has changed and we must change with it,” the letter said. “Unless we revisit the rules of the game, the World Bank Group faces the real possibility of becoming an anachronism on the international stage.”