It cannot be much fun running the World Bank these days. Apart from the complaints of the institution’s perennially fractious staff, the multilateral lender has seen increased competition from other sources of finance over the past two decades. Now it faces rising criticism from its largest shareholder.
Donald Trump’s administration, never likely to be a great fan of a global institution that sends American money abroad, has complained that the bank lends too much to countries such as China, which can borrow elsewhere.
In the past, the response of the bank’s president, the American Jim Yong Kim, has been to roll with the punches rather than robustly standing up for the institution’s founding principles. This year he tried to win over Mr Trump by helping to create and administer a fund for women’s development set up by Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter.