Public Health expert to lead the World Bank

The World Bank’s Executive Directors selected Dr. Jim Yong Kim as the 12th President of the World Bank Group on 16 April 2012.


For the first time since the World Bank was founded, multiple nominees were proposed by World Bank members.

Out of three candidates, the Executive Directors selected Dr. Jim Yong Kim as President for a five-year term.

- First Statement by Dr Jim Yong Kim

Dr Jim Yong Kim Biography

Source: World Bank Press Release:

Dr. Jim Yong Kim is currently President of Dartmouth College. A U.S. national, Dr. Kim is a co-founder of Partners in Health (PIH) and a former director of the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization (WHO).

Before assuming the Dartmouth presidency, Dr. Kim held professorships at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He also served as chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and director of the François Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Kim was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship (2003), was named one of America’s “25 Best Leaders” by US News & World Report (2005), and was selected as one of TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” (2006). He was elected in 2004 to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences—one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine—for his professional achievements and commitment to service. He has published widely over the past two decades, authoring or co-authoring articles for leading academic and scientific journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, and Science.

Born in 1959 in Seoul, South Korea, Dr. Kim moved with his family to the United States at the age of five and grew up in Muscatine, Iowa. Dr. Kim graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 1982. He earned a medical doctorate from Harvard Medical School in 1991 and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University in 1993. He is married to Dr. Younsook Lim, a pediatrician. The couple has two young sons.

P.S.

The World Bank Group consists of five organizations and aims to reduce poverty in the world:

- IBRD: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) lends to governments of middle-income and creditworthy low-income countries.

- IDA: The International Development Association (IDA) provides interest-free loans—called credits— and grants to governments of the poorest countries.

- IFC: The International Finance Corporation (IFC) provides loans, equity and technical assistance to stimulate private sector investment in developing countries.

- MIGA: The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) provides guarantees against losses caused by non-commercial risks to investors in developing countries.

- ICSID: The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) provides international facilities for conciliation and arbitration of investment disputes.

Last modified on April 17 2012.