World Bank Should Publish Board Minutes on Wolfowitz

World Bank Should Publish Board Minutes on Wolfowitz Vote Says Nancy Birdsall, President, Center for Global Development

3/17/2005 11:27:00 AM

To: National Desk

Contact: Tony Kopetchny of the Center for Global Development, 202-416-0705 or tkopetchny [at] cgdev.org

WASHINGTON, March 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The World Bank should publish the minutes of the upcoming board discussion and vote on the U.S. nomination of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as World Bank president, said Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development (CGD).

Press reports on Tuesday quoted a World Bank spokesman as saying that the World Bank would begin to publish minutes of the institution's board discussions starting April 1. Discussions of the Bank's 24-member board are traditionally closed and off-the- record.

"The decision to release the minutes is long over due," Birdsall said. "Minutes of the discussion of the nomination of Paul Wolfowitz should be made public, even if this happens before April 1. It's important that the minutes identify who said what. There is no use making them public if they don't identify who took what positions."

CGD, an independent think tank working to improve development- related policies of the U.S. and other rich countries, has established a working group to identify priorities for the next Bank president. The 30 members of the group include independent scholars and former senior World Bank and IMF officials.

Birdsall said that even if Wolfowitz's nomination is confirmed by the Bank's board he will start with two handicaps: suspicion that he will make the Bank a platform for Bush administration security policy instead of for fighting world poverty, and increased resentment among developing countries about the U.S. lock on the selection process.

"Whether Wolfowitz is qualified or not - and he may surprise the nay-sayers - it's really unfortunate that the Bush Administration didn't openly consider other candidates and encourage other governments to propose non-American nominees," she said.

Birdsall worked for 14 years in the World Bank and was director of the Bank's research department. She later served as the executive vice president of the Inter-American Development Bank, the largest of the regional development banks. She has written extensively on development assistance and the role of multilateral institutions.

Since the United States is the World Bank's largest contributor, Washington has the highest share of weighted voting on its 24-member board. Historically, that has guaranteed approval of U.S. nominees to head the bank.

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