Okonjo Iweala, 2 others confirmed for World Bank race

The World Bank announced Friday three candidates to succeed outgoing president Robert Zoellick, one nominated by the United States and two others from developing countries.The candidates were identified as Jim Yong Kim, a US national and president of Dartmouth College; Jose Antonio Ocampo, a Colombian national and professor at Columbia University; and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian national and finance minister of Nigeria.The Bank’s board of executive directors said the “three nominees will be considered for the position.”The announcement came shortly after the closure of the nominating period at 6 pm (2200 GMT).Under the selection process previously announced, the executive directors will conduct formal interviews of the three candidates in Washington during the following weeks.
The World Bank said it expected to selecting the new president “by consensus” by its 2012 Spring Meetings with the International Monetary Fund that begin on April 20.Zoellick plans to step down at the end of his term in June.
Since its founding in 1944, Washington has always chosen the head of the World Bank, and has filled the position each time with an American, without opposition.
But this year, for the first time two challengers are vying with the US nominee to replace the outgoing Bank president, former US diplomat Robert Zoellick.
Here are the three:– Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: nominated by her own country Nigeria as well as South Africa and Angola, the 57-year-old economist and finance minister has already spent more than two decades in numerous positions at the World Bank.Born into an aristocratic family in southern Nigeria, she studied economics at Harvard and earned a doctorate in regional economics and development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.In her most recent position at the Bank, she was managing director under Zoellick, before being drafted by the new Nigerian government to oversee financial reforms.She is married to a surgeon, Ikemba Iweala, and they have four children.–
Jose Antonio Ocampo, 59, is a US-trained economist who has served in the Colombian government as well as the United Nations.He has held posts as agriculture minister, planning minister and central bank chairman in Colombia’s government, and was executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean for six years.From 2003-2007, he was United Nations under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs.He is currently a professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York.–
Jim Yong Kim: the US nominee, 52, was born in South Korea but grew up in rural Iowa. He studied medicine and anthropology at Harvard and taught medicine in several universities.Between 2003 and 2007, he led a World Health Organization initiative to bring antiretroviral drugs to HIV/AIDS patients in developing countries. A nonprofit he co-founded, Partners in Health, works with impoverished communities everywhere from Haiti to Russia.His current position is president of Dartmouth College, one of the country’s elite Ivy League universities.He is married to Younsook Lim, a pediatrician.