International
US Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz to be World Bank President
By Finfacts Team
Mar 17, 2005, 08:15

Wolfowitz to be named by Bush for top World Bank job

Wolfowitz, 61, will replace James Wolfensohn, 71, who announced in January that he would leave the bank when his term ends May 31st.

Wolfowitz's nomination needs the approval of all of the World Bank's member countries, which is expected to be a formality. By tradition, the US selects the head of the World Bank, and European member governments choose the managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

Wolfowitz is a controversial choice because of his identification as a high profile advocate of the invasion of Iraq.

On Friday, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, sent an invitation to Mr. Paul Wolfowitz to present his views on Development and the role of the World Bank. Mr. Wolfowitz has been nominated by the US President, George W. Bush, as the candidate to the Presidency of the World Bank, a key actor in Development.

Commissioner Michel said: “I am looking forward to meeting Mr Wolfowitz in Brussels to listen to his ideas on Development, the main challenges ahead and his vision for the World Bank as a major actor.”

Mr. Michel underlined that “as the world’s largest aid donor, the European Union has built a strategic partnership with the World Bank to pursue its main goal, which is poverty alleviation. This institution plays a crucial role in addressing the development challenges, a huge task that can only be tackled by a joint effort of the international community”.

Paul Wolfowitz was born December 22, 1943, son of a statistician/information theorist named Jacob Wolfowitz. Prior to becoming Deputy Secretary of Defense in 2001, Wolfowitz served as Dean and Professor of International Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of The John Hopkins University. SAIS is widely regarded as one of the world's leading graduate schools of international relations with 750 students, studying on campuses in Washington, D.C.; Nanjing, China; and Bologna, Italy. As Dean, he led a successful capital campaign that raised more than $75 million and doubled the school's endowment. Also under his leadership, the curriculum and facilities were modernized and new faculty and programs were added to shift the school's focus from the Cold War to the era of globalization.

From 1989 to 1993, Wolfowitz served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in charge of the 700-person defense policy team that was responsible to Secretary Dick Cheney for matters concerning strategy, plans, and policy. During this period Secretary Wolfowitz and his staff had major responsibilities for the reshaping of strategy and force posture at the end of the Cold War.

During the Reagan administration, Wolfowitz served for three years as US Ambassador to Indonesia - the fourth largest country in the world and the largest in the Muslim world. There he earned a reputation as a highly popular and effective Ambassador, a tough negotiator on behalf of American intellectual property owners, and a public advocate of political openness and democratic values. During his tenure, Embassy Jakarta was cited as one of the four best-managed embassies inspected in 1988.

Prior to that posting, he served three and a half years as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, where he was in charge of US relations with more than twenty countries. In addition to contributing to substantial improvements in US relations with Japan and China, Assistant Secretary

Wolfowitz's previous government service included:

* Two years as head of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff (1981-82):
* An earlier Pentagon tour as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Regional Programs (1977-80), where he helped create the force that later became the United States Central Command and initiated the Maritime Pre-positioning Ships, the backbone of the initial U.S. deployment twelve years later in Operation Desert Shield;
* Four years (1973-77) in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, working on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and a number of nuclear nonproliferation issues; and
* A year as a Management Intern at the Bureau of the Budget (1966-67).