Mark Vlasic on HuffPost: International Stolen Asset Recovery As a Development Issue — A World Bank President’s Legacy?
Mark wrote a very interesting article in this morning’s HP on how Robert Zoellick has changed the World Bank:
This weekend Robert B. Zoellick, the 11th president of the World Bank Group, will preside over his last Spring Meetings. And while many of the private discussions at the international forum of ministers and development officials will likely focus on Jim Yong Kim, the Dartmouth College president recently selected to serve as the next World Bank president, it is worth taking a moment to consider the legacy that Mr. Zoellick will leave behind.
In many ways, Zoellick spent the last five years juggling a World Bank “turnaround,” in both reputation and effectiveness, all while managing one global crisis after another. He entered an institution that was tarnished, inside and out. Scandal had dented not just the Bank’s external reputation, but in some ways, also its internal core — the impressive collection of international technocrats and development experts who drive the Bank Group’s operations in every corner of the world, but whose good work was sadly overshadowed, for a time, by an eager media, sometimes more interested in sensational headlines than the development matrixes and economic models that are central to helping create “a world free of poverty.”
Vlasic further articulated Zoellick’s legacy by noting how he began transitioning the work environment at the World Bank to bare a more regimented and strategic attitude:
Mr. Zoellick lost little time when he started at the Bank Group. Perhaps those most aware of the new presidential pace were his vice presidents and senior staff. Early morning meetings were not the exception — but the rule. Blackberries buzzed at every hour of the day, as an ambitious new president pressed issue after issue, leaving many to wonder when the Illinois native found time to sleep. But from the financial crisis, to the food crisis, to the debt crisis, there was little time for down time for anyone — least of all, to the man at the helm and his hardworking team.
To read the full article, click here.
