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Nominee for president of the World Bank, Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim, stands while being announced by U.S. President Barack Obama in the Rose Garden on March 23 in Washington, DC. Kim, who is seen as a surprise pick, is a Korean born physician that is prominent in global health circles.
Lant Pritchett is Professor of the Practice of International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Outsiders must be a little mystified as to why the Obama administration’s nomination of Jim Young Kim to lead the World Bank has kicked up so much dust in the development community. I suspect the casual observer thinks: “Such a nice man, a doctor devoted to HIV/AIDS and to the poorest in the poorest places. Why the fuss?”
But picking a new World Bank head is a little like picking a new Pope. The process isn’t just about the individual candidates for the position, but about the overall direction of the faith. And so, the controversy over Kim’s nomination is not really about Kim himself. It’s a debate about a philosophical schism in the development community.
The original idea of development really gained strength with the de-colonialization that followed World War II in Asia and later in Africa. Just as objects in nature go through a process of development to achieve their full potential — acorns become oaks, tadpoles become frogs, human embryos become people — the idea was that newly sovereign states would experience a historical process whereby India would become Britain, Korea would become Japan, and Cote d’Ivoire would become France.
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