Jeffrey Sachs submits his CV for World Bank job

In a Washington Post op-ed, Jeffrey Sachs makes the case for why he should be the next World Bank president. And in so doing, he takes a not-so-subtle swing at those who’ve held the job previously: [T]he World Bank is adrift. It is spread too thin. It has taken on too many fads. It is ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Jeffrey Sachs makes the case for why he should be the next World Bank president. And in so doing, he takes a not-so-subtle swing at those who've held the job previously:

In a Washington Post op-ed, Jeffrey Sachs makes the case for why he should be the next World Bank president. And in so doing, he takes a not-so-subtle swing at those who’ve held the job previously:

[T]he World Bank is adrift. It is spread too thin. It has taken on too many fads. It is too disconnected from critical areas of science and knowledge. Without incisive leadership, the bank has often seemed like just a bank. And unfortunately, Washington has backed at the helm bankers and politicians who lack the expertise to fulfill the institution’s unique mandate.

The World Bank presidency should not be a training ground in development. Its leader should come to office understanding the realities of flooded villages, drought-ridden farms, desperate mothers hovering over comatose, malaria-infected children, and teenage girls unable to pay high school tuition. More than knowing these realities, and caring to end them, the bank president should understand their causes and interconnected solutions.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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