Lucky Jim

BACK in 2011 the World Bank’s governors committed themselves to an “open, merit-based and transparent” process to select its president. This week the American incumbent, Jim Yong Kim, was confirmed as the sole candidate for the next five-year term in another closed, patronage-based and opaque process. That falls short of the standards the bank seeks of its borrowers, let alone itself. It also hastens the rise of rival institutions.Mr Kim’s appointment stems from an archaic and now obsolete tradition dating back to the Bretton Woods conference of 1944, by which America chooses the boss of the World Bank and the head of the IMF is a European. That may have reflected the global pecking order as the second world war came to an end. But it does not suit the world today.