June 23, 2007
World Bank
Zoellick Has Work Cut Out for Him
By DEBORAH SOLOMON
June 23, 2007; Page A2
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When he gets the formal nod Monday to become president of the
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World Bank, Robert Zoellick will face challenges ranging from a staff • Order a reprint of this article now.
revolt to defining the role of the poverty-fighting institution in a
global economy where more and more private money is flowing to developing countries.
But his immediate hurdle will be escaping the shadow of his besmirched
predecessor, Paul Wolfowitz, who quit following accusations that he
secured a pay-and-promotion package for his girlfriend.
One early test: Whom Mr. Zoellick surrounds himself with. A major
criticism of Mr. Wolfowitz was that he insulated himself with a small coterie
of close aides and didn't seek out differing opinions, alienating both staff
and the bank's executive directors, who run the institution on behalf of 185
member countries.
To avoid the pitfalls that befell Mr. Wolfowitz -- who never overcame his
image as an architect of President Bush's Iraq war -- Mr. Zoellick is being
advised to avoid hiring from the Bush political establishment.
"Mr. Wolfowitz built a little wall around himself in the presidency and put gatekeepers there," says
Colin Bradford, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. For Mr. Zoellick to succeed, he "should
want to hear a difference of views and he needs to appoint people from big countries, like China."
Mr. Zoellick, currently a vice chairman at Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs, is a former Bush
U.S. Trade Representative and deputy Secretary of State, but isn't one of the Wolfowitz neocon
crowd. He has said he'll make staff outreach a priority and work to fix flagging morale.
Another big question mark: How aggressively will Mr. Zoellick pursue Mr. Wolfowitz's crackdown
on corrupt governments. That agenda ran into resistance, partly because some World Bank insiders
and other governments said it detracted from the bank's primary goal of ending poverty, and because
he cut off funds to some governments without consensus from the institution.
Mr. Zoellick, who just returned from a two-week world tour to Africa, Europe and Latin America
before even formally getting the job, has said he plans to focus heavily on the poorest countries in
Africa. But with so much private money flowing into distressed economies there, he'll need to find a
way to make sure the institution has an impact.
"The bank should certainly continue with its work in dealing with the poorest countries in Africa,
but in those countries where other donors are operating the bank needs to carve out where is its
specific niche, where does it have value," says Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global
Development, an antipoverty group in Washington.
He'll also be wading into a debate about whether the bank should focus solely on lending money in
low-income countries or to continue working in middle-income markets such as China, where
access to capital is more readily available but many people still live in poverty.
Some argue that since middle-income countries have access to loans through commercial banks, the
World Bank should instead devote its funds elsewhere. Others say that ignoring middle-income
countries will hurt the World Bank by robbing it of those countries' expertise in developing their
markets and undercut those countries by cutting them off from the institution.
Write to Deborah Solomon at deborah.solomon@wsj.com1
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