Category Archives: world bank

World Bank Biofuels Report Finally Released

Three weeks ago, the Guardian’s Aditya Chakrabortty published "the biofuels report they didn’t want you to read": the research paper from the World Bank’s Don Mitchell saying that 75% of the rise in global food prices could be attributed to … Continue reading

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is Brilliant

It’s the Brilliant issue of Portfolio this month, and under "Game Changers" one finds a lot of big-deal CEOs: Rupert Murdoch, Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, Ratan Tata. And right there next to them is Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. I went down to … Continue reading

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Why Sovereign Wealth Funds Should Invest in Africa

I’m a fan of World Bank president Robert Zoellick’s idea yesterday that sovereign wealth funds should invest 1% of their assets in Africa. For one thing, as Zoellick says, this kind of investment makes sense on a purely financial level. … Continue reading

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The Wolfowitz Ouster, Redux

Fox News journalist James Rosen has a long and largely sympathetic account of Paul Wolfowitz’s ouster from the World Bank in the November issue of Playboy. At the beginning of the piece he’s unambiguous: What happened to Wolfowitz was more … Continue reading

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World Bank Pays Off Nicaraguan Debt at 4.5 Cents on the Dollar

Here’s something which hasn’t got a lot of traction in the press: the World Bank has just spent $61 million on paying off a bunch of old Nicaraguan debt dating back to the late 1970s and early 1980s. The amount … Continue reading

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Ngozi Returns to the World Bank

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is, unfortunately, not American enough to be president of the world bank herself. But the president of the world bank is smart enough to appoint her managing director – a very senior position (see the new, old org … Continue reading

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Addressing Climate Change at the World Bank

"Marshall
Jevons
" has been watching the telly, and saw Sebastian Mallaby
telling Fareed Zakaria what Robert Zoellick
should be doing at the World Bank.
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Okonjo-Iweala and Zoellick on Video

Okonjo-Iweala is magnetic. Zoellick, not so much.
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Why Robert Zoellick Is Not a Good Idea for the World Bank

Zoellick really has no qualifications at all for this job, beyond an understanding of international finance.
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Okonjo-Iweala as Interim World Bank President?

Joe Stiglitz and Nancy Birdsall think an interim president would be a very good idea.
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More Reasons for Bush to Nominate Okonjo-Iweala

I’d just note that Okonjo-Iweala is not only deeply committed to American values,
but also has an American address. The only thing she doesn’t have is an American
passport.
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Will the Next World Bank President Be Another Bush Crony?

This
isn’t the first time that Bill Frist has been mentioned as
a possible World Bank president, but it might be the first time he’s been called
a favorite for the nomination. I think that Blake
Hounshell
is right and that the WSJ article is "likely a trial balloon
floated by the White House". What’s more, it’s a trial balloon which deserves
and early and emphatic popping. Frist would be an atrocious
choice
, and frankly I can’t see him getting much traction with a World Bank
board which is not exactly sympathetic to Bush cronies these days.
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World Bank Stitch-Up to Continue

Just about any process for choosing the World Bank’s president would be better than what we have now, which is no process at all.
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Wolfowitz Finally Wakes up to Reality, Resigns

Talk about a lame duck. Paul Wolfowitz will resign
as president of the World Bank on June 30, a month and a half from now, during
which time he will earn $50,000, tax-free, and do substantively zero useful
work. Then again, it’s not a lot of time to find a replacement. Ngozi,
of course, has an easily-leavable job at the Brookings Institute, and she’s
in Washington already. It would be silly to look at anyone else, if you ask
me.
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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for World Bank President!

I doubt that Bush has the vision to nominate Ngozi. But it would be a wonderful day if he did.
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White House Still Well Behind the Wolfowitz Curve

The attempts
by the Bush administration to do right by Paul Wolfowitz are
touching, if laughably inadequate.
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Wolfowitz Damned by Bank Board

There seems no way now that this whole thing isn’t going to become very ugly. The worst possible outcome, really, for the World Bank – unless it somehow results in a new president from a developing nation.
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Wolfowitz 0-1 Bloggers

Wolfowitz gossip hits the blogs, and even the Washington Post.
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The World Bank and Corruption

A lot of people seem to think that although Paul Wolfowitz must go, it’s a
pity that the Bank’s anti-corruption initiative might be weakened at the same
time. I think the opposite is true: that without Wolfowitz’s moralizing about
corruption, the Bank can actually be more effective on the issue.
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Wolfowitz: Deals No Longer On The Table

The Europeans are incredibly reluctant to force a board vote on Wolfowitz. They don’t want to anagonize their allies, the Americans, and they don’t want to damage the Bank more than it has been damaged already. But the intransigence being shown by both Wolfowitz and the Bush administration is forcing their hand.
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US Steps Up Wolfowitz Support

Wolfowitz is sure to go one way or another, so at this point the interests of the US are in making his departure as painless as possible, and maximizing US control over the choice of his successor. Unfortunately, the US seems to be acting in direct opposition to both of those interests right now.
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Kemal Dervis for World Bank President!

Dervis would be great for many reasons, not least because he would be the first president of the World Bank not to be a US citizen.
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One Question for Paul Wolfowitz

Why on earth haven’t you resigned already?
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Wolfowitz’s Ouster: The End of the Bretton Woods Carve-Up?

This could be the single biggest silver lining to the disastrous Wolfowitz presidency: the end of the outmoded convention that the president of the World Bank is always an American and the managing director of the IMF is always a European.
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Rogoff, Wolfowitz, and Blue Ribbons

Le Monde admits its mistake, and Portfolio reveals the true extent of the DC blue-ribbon shortage.
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