Macroscope | Who would want to take the helm of a World Bank that has lost its focus?
- Bank is promoter of poverty reduction and social welfare, health care agency, economic and financial policy adviser and (only then) infrastructure builder
- Founded in 1944 to finance post-World War II reconstruction, the institution has lost its identity and sense of purpose
The bank, a bloated bureaucracy of more than 10,000 employees and 120 worldwide offices, has lost its way by getting involved in socio-economic tasks that have little relevance to its original remit of tackling infrastructure and other reconstruction tasks.
Where these tasks are concerned, the World Bank has been sidelined by other institutions such as the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and by the sharper focus of regional lenders such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the African Development Bank.
The World Bank is supposed to be a global leader on infrastructure, but also saw part of its role taken over by the G20 Global Infrastructure Hub in Sydney and by powerful infrastructure initiatives promoted by China, Japan, the US and Australia.
Given the way the Bank has wished itself into the wilderness, the question is not who the next leader is, but whether anyone wants the job at all, given its diminished status. Big names canvassed in the past, such as former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, will hardly be in the running.