World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim will resign effective February 1, more than three years ahead of the expiration of his term in 2022. Mr. Kim, 59, a physician and public health advocate, was nominated by former U.S. President Barack Obama for two five-year terms.
Mr. Kim announced on Twitter yesterday that he will be stepping down as World Bank Group president on February 1. “It’s been the greatest privilege I could have ever imagined to lead the dedicated staff of this great institution to bring us closer to a world that is finally free of poverty,” Mr. Kim noted.
World Bank said on January 7 that “World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim today announced that he will be stepping down from his position after more than six years in which the institution’s shareholders provided strong support to multiple initiatives to ensure that the Bank Group retains strong leadership in the world of global development.”
Under Kim’s leadership, and with the backing of the Bank Group’s 189 member countries, the institution in 2012 established two goals: to end extreme poverty by 2030; and to boost shared prosperity, focusing on the bottom 40 percent of the population in developing countries, the multilateral lender noted.
During his term, President Kim emphasized that one of the greatest needs in the developing world is infrastructure finance, and he pushed the Bank Group to maximize finance for development by working with a new cadre of private sector partners committed to building sustainable, climate-smart infrastructure in developing countries, the World Bank said, noting that Kim has announced that, immediately after his departure, he will join a firm and focus on increasing infrastructure investments in developing countries.
In addition to working on infrastructure investments, Kim announced that he will also be re-joining the board of Partners in Health (PIH), an organization he co-founded more than 30 years ago.
Kristalina Georgieva, who in 2017 became the World Bank's chief executive officer, will assume the role of interim president when Kim departs. Georgieva, a Bulgarian national, had previously held senior European Union posts after serving 15 years at the World Bank, starting as an environmental economist in 1993.
