5 October 2007
World Bank President Robert Zoellick has named former Nigerian Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as a new managing director of the Bank, effective December 1, 2007.
President Robert Zoellick yesterday announced the appointment of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as a new managing director of the World Bank, and has re-assigned responsibilities of his two other managing directors.
Effective December 1, 2007, Okonjo-Iweala will be responsible for Africa, Europe and Central Asia, and South Asia, the regions that borrow the most from the International Development Agency (IDA), the Bank's lending arm to low and middle-income countries. She will also oversee the Bank's Human Resources division.
Managing director Juan Jose Daboub will now oversee the Middle East, Latin America and East Asia regions. Graeme Wheeler, the other managing director, will be responsible for the Bank's development networks -- sustainable, financial and human development -- as well as poverty reduction and economic management and the World Bank Institute.
The three managing directors join Executive Vice Presidents Lars Thunell (International Finance Corporation) and Yukiko Omura (Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency), and Chief Financial Officer Vincenzo La Via at the top level of World Bank Group (WBG) management.
Okonjo-Iweala's appointment comes on the heels of Zoellick’s first revamping of high level posts last month when he chose Caroline Anstey to be his new Chief of Staff.
The choice of Okonjo-Iweala is thought to be popular with Bank staff and non-governmental organizations, some of whom tried to promote her as a possible successor to former embattled President Paul Wolfowitz, according to the Financial Times.
Okonjo-Iweala is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institute and had previously worked at the bank for 21 years as a development economist. From 2003-2006, she served as Finance Minister and subsequently Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria. She serves on the Boards of several public, private and non-governmental sectors including DATA, the World Resources Institute, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Nelson Mandela Institution and the African Institutes of Science and Technology, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation Governance Prize Committee, Friends of the Global Fund Africa. She is also an adviser to the World Bank-United Nations' new Stolen Assets Recovery (STAR) initiative, and served as a member of the Malan Committee on World Bank-International Monetary Fund collaboration.
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