Ex-World Bank staff and leading economists support Nigeria's Okonjo-Iweala for top job

Nigeria's Okonjo-Iweala 

A group of former World Bank officials has written a letter backing Nigeria's Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to be its next president. Traditionally the post is given to the candidate put forward by the US, which this time is Dr Jim Yong Kim. But in an open letter, 35 former economists and managers said the Bank should choose the next chief on merit.

Another group of economists this week signed a petition backing Colombia's Jose Antonio Ocampo.

This is the first time the World Bank has had to choose between candidates since its creation more than 60 years ago.

The executive board of the Bank has to choose between Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, a former World Bank managing director, Jose Antonio Ocampo, a former finance minister of Colombia, and Jim Yong Kim, a public health expert and president of Dartmouth College in the US.

The Bank is holding interviews next week and plans to select the successor to outgoing president Robert Zoellick by 20 April, when it starts its spring meetings with the IMF.

The three-way fight is attracting increasingly passionate comment from candidates' supporters. It has also shone a light on the way the World Bank chooses its head.

The US, which is the Bank's largest shareholder, has always picked the Bank's president. It, Europe and Japan have 54% of the votes.

Under an informal arrangement, in return, Europe appoints a European as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is the Bank's sister institution. It is currently run by Frenchwoman Christine Lagarde.

Emerging economies have become increasingly unhappy with this system and are pushing for change.

The leaders of Russia, Brazil, China, India and South Africa recently called for a review of that weighted voting system.

The nations, sometimes referred to as the Brics countries, are working to chose a joint candidate, according to the Brazilian finance minister Guido Mantega.

Speaking after a meeting with the US-nominated Jim Yong Kim, he said Brazil has not yet made up its mind who to promote.

"By late next week Brazil should have a position on the matter and I will talk with the other Brics."

He said Dr Kim had vast experience with the developing world, but he would wait until he had met the other candidates before making up his mind.

The letter in support of Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, which is signed by high-ranking managers and economists, including Tunisia's central bank chief, Mustapha Nabli, criticised some aspects of the selection process.

It said that it still involves nomination by governments, based in part on nationality, and without an agreed list of qualifying criteria.

It called for the process to be made in "an open, transparent, merit-based, and competitive manner rather than simply appointed in line with understandings that no longer reflect the world as it is today".

Mrs Okonjo-Iweala herself has called for a televised debate between the three candidates.

Her supporters said: "We believe that Mrs Okonjo-Iweala has outstanding qualifications across the full range of relevant criteria."

Mrs Okonjo-Iweala "would bring the combination of her experience as finance and foreign minister of a large and complex African country with her wide experience of working at all levels of the Bank's hierarchy in different parts of the world, from agricultural economist to managing director".

It says "she would be the outstanding World Bank president the times call for" and pointed out that should would be the institution's first female leader.

They said they cared too much about the institution not to speak out.

The petition is support of Mr Ocampo was signed by economists from countries including China, India and Brazil, as well as two former governors of the Chilean central bank.

It pointed to his background working for UN agencies where "his intellectual leadership and commitment to development led to significant improvements in these institutions contribution to development thinking and to development policy design".

He has also been setting out his views of the future shape of the World Bank.

Writing in the Financial Times newspaper, he said the Bank's core mandate must remain that of reducing poverty, addressing growing inequalities that have appeared in recent decades and eliminating gender inequalities.

Mrs Okonjo-Iweala has also been outlining what she thinks should be the Bank's main goal.

She said that it should be creating jobs, in both developing and developed countries, with a particular focus on youth unemployment because of the knock-on social problems it caused.

Dr Kim, who once did a turn as a rap artist at a social event at Dartmouth College, has the support of Canada, Japan and South Korea, where he was born, as well as the US.

He has not yet given an interview about his views on the role at the World Bank, but has described it in a statement as "one of the most critical institutions fighting poverty and providing assistance to developing countries in the world today".

Clueless Ecowas leaders impose sanctions on Mali junta.... to the delight of advancing (Al-Qaeda backed) rebels

West African states are imposing immediate sanctions on Mali, Ivory Coast's president has announced.

Alassane Ouattara, current head of regional body Ecowas (Economic Community of West African States), said it had closed borders to trade and frozen Mali's access to bank accounts.

The group had given the leaders of the country's military coup until today (Monday) to step down.

Coup leader Capt Amadou Sanogo said he has "taken note" of the Ecowas sanctions.

In a statement, he said the military junta was open to "mediation to find solutions out of the crisis" but that its priority remained "recovering the country's territorial integrity faced with the crisis in the north".

Tuareg rebels (former Muammar Gaddafi fighters in Libya) have made rapid advances in the north of the country over the last few days.

Correspondents say that Mali, a poor, landlocked country, would struggle to survive an economic blockade.

It is almost entirely dependent on its Ecowas neighbours for trade. Mali also shares its currency with seven other regional countries - and other members of the CFA franc zone have said they will cut transfers to Mali's banks.

President Ouattara said: "All diplomatic, economic, financial measures and others are applicable from today (Monday) and will not be lifted until the re-establishment of constitutional order."

He added that Ecowas' military force had been put on standby.

Mali's neighbours are keen for order to be restored in the country.

"The situation in Mali is extremely serious, it is a blow to democracy and an attack on the territorial integrity of this country," Mr Ouattara said.

The army said it had staged its coup because the campaign against the Tuareg rebels - who are fighting for an autonomous region in the north of Mali - had been poorly run.

But the Tuareg took advantage of the political situation over the weekend by seizing the key towns of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal.

The UN Security Council (notorious for the Libya fiasco and its unintended consequences) will hold an emergency meeting on the crisis in Mali on Tuesday, sources quoted a US mission spokesman as saying.

France initially called for the meeting because it is increasingly concerned about gains made by Tuareg rebels in the north since the junta overthrew Mali's government, the agency adds.

Capt Sanogo has said the army is not leaving power, but has promised to consult local political forces to set up a transition body "with the aim of organising peaceful, free, open and democratic elections in which we will not take part".

The coup and Tuareg rebellion have exacerbated a humanitarian crisis in Mali and some neighbouring countries, with aid agencies warning that 13 million people need food aid.