WASHINGTON: The World Bank chose Korean-American physician Jim Yong Kim as its next chief Monday in a decision that surprised few but took beating an unprecedented challenge to the US lock on the Bank's presidency.
The Bank picked the 52-year-old US health expert and educator over Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala amid rising pressure from emerging and developing countries for the huge development lender to recruit one of their own for a leader.
Kim, the president of the Ivy League university Dartmouth College, will succeed outgoing president Robert Zoellick, a former US diplomat who is departing in June at the end of his five-year term.
After the first-ever open fight for the job, the Bank's directors expressed "deep appreciation" to Kim, Okonjo-Iweala and a third candidate, Colombian economist Jose Antonio Ocampo, who withdrew from the race Friday.
"Their candidacies enriched the discussion of the role of the president and of the World Bank Group's future direction," the Bank said in a statement.
"The final nominees received support from different member countries, which reflected the high caliber of the candidates."
The US nomination of Kimhad surprised many, as he was little known outside global health circles and has no background in development economics.
It also broke the pattern of the 11 American bankers and diplomats who have held the job before him.
South Korea-born, US-raised Kim instead has Harvard degrees in medicine and anthropology, and a strong record in developing programs to fight diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in poor countries.
The position is crucial for much of the developing world. The president oversees a staff of 9,000 economists and policy specialists, and portfolio of loans for development projects that hit $258 billion in 2011.
In a statement from Lima, Peru, on Monday, Kim pledged to "seek a new alignment of the World Bank Group with a rapidly changing world."
There had been little doubt about the Bank's choice of Kim. By a longstanding pact Washington has chosen the head of the World Bank while Europe has held control of who leads its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund. (AFP)