Developments at the Development Bank
But there should be no surprise over the intention of the nomination: to select someone who has been deeply and passionately immersed in development and poverty reduction efforts to run the world’s largest poverty-reduction institution. In fact, it makes all the sense in the world.
As President Obama said today as he nominated Dr. Kim, “The leader of the World Bank should have a deep understanding of both the role that development plays in the world and the importance of creating conditions where assistance is no longer needed. It’s time for a development professional to lead the world’s largest development agency.”
Past leaders of the World Bank have been economists and trade specialists and defense experts and diplomats. Now comes Dr. Kim (traditionally, Washington selects the president of the World Bank, while the Europeans name the head of the International Monetary Fund). A Korean-American, he is a global health expert who co-founded Partners in Health, a nonprofit that provides health care for the poor in some of the most wretched places on earth. Most recently the president of Dartmouth College, Dr. Kim is also a former director of the department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization.
The background he brings to the World Bank will hopefully be good news for the Bank’s renewed commitment to agriculture development as the driving force of poverty reduction in the world’s poorest countries. Zoellick began to reverse decades of neglect of agriculture development and multiplied the amount of money flowing into projects to help the world’s poor and hungry smallholder farmers become as productive as possible. That work needs to continue and accelerate.
From his past experience, Dr. Kim is fully aware of the ravages of malnutrition and hunger, how an absence of food and micro-nutrients undermines all the good work being done on the health front. He knows that you can’t solve the world’s health problems, the world’s development problems, without ending hunger and malnutrition.
He also has been a committed practitioner of intensive consultation with the intended beneficiaries of a development program, to understand the challenges, needs and desires of the world’s poor. Living with those you seek to help, questioning the inequalities, pushing for innovative solutions, have been hallmarks of Partners in Health.
Too often in the past at the World Bank, economic theory and text-book financial practices trumped practical on-the-ground understanding. Projects that looked good on office blackboards often backfired in tiny villages. The classic example was the Bank’s structural adjustment policies of fiscal austerity that ended up punishing smallholder farmers in the developing world, particularly in Africa, and derailing agricultural development for decades. Structural adjustment, well intentioned on the drawing board, ordered poor country governments to drop their support of agriculture so the private sector could develop and flourish.
Well, the private sector in most African countries was too weak, too undercapitalized and too disinterested to fill the void and agriculture collapsed. Seed companies failed, extension services disappeared, the farmers were left alone to bear 100% of the risk of a very risky business. In the meantime, rich world governments – who control the World Bank — increased their support of their own farmers, creating a horribly unbalanced global agriculture system. It was nearly three decades before the World Bank reversed course and once again made agriculture development a top priority.
Dr. Kim will need to keep it there. His co-founder of Partners in Health, Paul Farmer, said after hearing the news of his friend’s nomination, according to the New York Times: “Jim is all about delivery and about delivering on promises often made but too seldom kept.”
Delivering on promises to the poor. It should no longer be a surprise. It should be expected.
Archive
Making the invisible, visible
“Where is the outrage?,” came the plea in London at the conclusion of a parade of alarming statistics on child stunting.My Moment of Great Disruption
In a 2013 TEDxChange talk, Roger Thurow talks about the smallholder farmers of Africa and the potential for good news in agricultural development.Nelson Mandela: tolerance in an intolerant time
What will he say? What will Nelson Mandela say after 27 years in prison?Hay Festival 2013: a look at the effects of famine
In the first year classroom of Shemena Godo Primary School, in Boricha, Ethiopia, three dozen children study the alphabet. On a black chalkboard, teacher Chome Muse highlights the letter B and writes the combination with each vowel. Ba, be, bi, bo, bu.A Mother's Day parable from Uganda
A mother knows. “This child is brilliant,” Harriet Okaka says about her one-year-old son, Abraham. She isn’t bragging, just observing. “I can tell, just by looking at him,” she says, “the way he plays, the way he is.”1,000 Days Project
Roger Thurow’s next book will tell the story of the vital importance of proper nutrition and health care in the 1,000 days window from the beginning of a woman’s pregnancy to her child’s second birthday.Imagine this: food aid reform
As word spread earlier this week of the food aid reform section of President Obama’s 2014 budget, I wondered how Jerman Amente would greet the news.ONE's new report: a growing opportunity
Ten years ago, Africa’s hunger season reached new levels of desperation.Give peas a chance
As the ballots were being counted in the recent Kenya election, I saw photos of people displaying the encouraging message: Give Peace a Chance. So far, that sentiment seems to be holding.Wow! Ag development works
There’s a building boom going on in this western Kenya village.Forward ever
The young man from the farm was looking smart in an olive green suit, salmon tie and cufflinks. His black shoes were a bit scuffed, but his English was polished. “We are moving forward,” he said. “Forward ever, backward never.”Learning to Fish
In the vast assembly room at the Greater Chicago Food Depository, overlooking one of the nation’s premier food banking facilities, Drexton Granberry joyfully came to the end of his speech.Hanging on the Edge: The Daily Fiscal Cliff
The smallholder farmers of Africa know all about fiscal cliffs.A Thanksgiving Tale: The Hungercloth
I often write and speak about the awful oxymoron, "Hungry Farmers." How can the smallholder farmers of Africa suffer through an annual hunger season when every morning they rise with one task: grow food for their families?Forward with Feeding the Future
Forward with feeding the future!Multimedia
Videos
Digital Preview of The First 1,000 Days
In his new book, The First 1,000 Days, Council senior fellow Roger Thurow illuminates the 1,000 Days initiative to end early childhood malnutrition through the compelling stories of new mothers in Uganda, India, Guatemala, and Chicago. Get a first-look at photos and stories from the book in this new web interactive.
Books
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