World Bank

Jeffrey Sachs is the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York where he is also Professor of Sustainable Development as well as Professor of Health Policy and Management. In addition, he serves as Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. From 2002 to 2006, Sachs was Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally agreed goals to reduce extreme poverty, disease, and hunger by the year 2015. 

DW: In a highly unusual move, you have publicly declared your candidacy to become the next president of the World Bank. Why are you convinced that a development expert like yourself could run this large, politically-driven organization better than the politicians and bankers that have run it in the past?  

Jeffrey Sachs: I think we need expertise to run a complex institution that is not a bank, but is our leading institution for fighting poverty. And I have a long track record worldwide of actually fighting poverty and actually getting results. And I run large organizations and large programs and I think the problems with the politicians is that they don't really know what they are doing and the World Bank has made lots of mistakes over the years.

You argue that the World Bank is adrift and that its leaders don't know much about the severe problems its constituents face like hunger, poverty, education and diseases. But isn't the deeper institutional problem of the World Bank that it, like the IMF, is a post-World War organization which can only be run by Americans and Europeans and that this doesn't reflect the 21st century world we live in now?

I think the bank is not doing the things it needs to be doing, so I very much agree with that. I don't think that it is really a question of nationality per se. I think the bank president should be open to any nationality. It should be a proven development leader that has the professional knowledge and breadth and experience around the world and global networks and prospective and vision that can fight poverty, hunger and disease. And I don't think that the World Bank is doing that very effectively and that is why I am a candidate for World Bank president and why many, many countries around the world are supporting me.

As you alluded to in your campaign you have garnered endorsement from some African and Asian leaders. But as you know under the current arrangement Europeans next to the US play the key role in deciding who runs the World Bank. Have you talked to any European leaders and can you name some supporters who are willing to back your candidacy?

I have talked to European leaders, but I can't name them because what they told me is that I'm a superb candidate and I am the most experienced person in the field by far. They would warmly welcome me being World Bank president, but they will defer to the United States and that the general situation is reactive to the US.

This is understandable. This is how this process works. I am very gratified by the warm things the people have said to me because they know my track record. They know I am not doing this as a job on a resume. They know this is my life's work and successfully so. But they also operate within traditions of how the Bretton Woods system (the international monetary framework that led to the creation of the IMF and what today is the World Bank signed in 1944 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire - the ed.)  has worked and I am an American that happens to be somebody in global practice that has the support of the world. And I am hoping I can get the support of my own government. That's a somewhat steep climb actually.

If you can't give any names of European leaders, can you name some countries that would support you?

I can't. I have spoken with them in confidence and they have spoken with me in confidence. The current situation is that the expectation is that the US will nominate a candidate, Europe will support that candidate and the rest of the world will come into line. This is how it's always worked. 

As you just mentioned, basically President Barack Obama nominates a candidate whose election then is pretty much a done deal.

That's how it's worked up until now. I think it's an open question if that's how it'll continue to work. But this is how people view this process right now. Some people by the way are just simply resigned to the mediocre to poor performance of the bank because they say 'this is an institution more than six decades old, it's really an artifact of a different era and yes it will fade away, don't sweat it too much, this is just the end of a different era.' I think that's a very disappointing view. I am not a cynic, I never have been and I can't bring myself to very be a cynic. I believe the World Bank is a very important institution and potentially one that can contribute mightily to solving global problems.

Have you talked to President Obama or do you have any indication that he would select an outspoken development expert like yourself instead of a banker or a diplomat?

I have not spoken with the president. I have spoken with people who are involved in the US process. I'm hoping I am being considered seriously, but I'm not sure to tell you the truth. I am outspoken, I have a public record and a public presence for a quarter century. I have called on countries to do things and I have helped create institutions like the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. I have helped to design major initiatives that have proved their worth. But that makes me a public figure and it is perhaps not to the highest comfort of some politicians. I don't know. 

If you were to become World Bank President, what would be your first move to reform the organization?

I think that the bank should be much less a bank and much more a strategic leader on key scalable high-priority areas. We have made tremendous progress - and I have been part of that for the last 12 years - in the fight against Malaria for example which is down roughly 30 to 40 percent against the baseline of 2000. I know very well based on very intensive work, my own expertise, especially my deep engagement with the Malaria control experts around the world how we can turn that 40 percent into 80 or 90 percent in short order. That would be one of the first things that I would do.

Rather than having the strategy right now rather vague and open-ended, I think that there are some specific things the World Bank together with other multilateral institutions and national programs could leverage tremendously. That's true in disease control, infrastructure, in mobilizing solar power in the Sahel. It's true in helping the most desperate dry-land regions of the world which are three interconnected areas - the Sahel of West Africa, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia -  to get onto a far more effective sustainable development trajectory.

The World Bank has not been effective. It doesn't really understand, because it hasn't been led in this way how to have an approach that could make a huge difference for the pasturalists for example. And while that may seem esoteric, these are places where the world is enmeshed in conflict right now and it's conflict that results from hunger, disease, lack of livelihoods and from lack of a perceived future. This is very sad. We could be doing much much better.

There are of course numerous other candidates mentioned and discussed right now. Should you not get selected as World Bank president which candidates could you envisage supporting? 

The candidates that are mentioned in the US as under consideration are not development leaders. And I worry about that. This I think is one of the challenges and one of the reasons why I have taken on this effort to I hope help the White House understand and hope to help the world community understand the kind of leadership that's needed in this institution. I believe that I am highly qualified and would get the job done in a very effective manner and so I am hoping that I will be the one that's selected.

Even if you weren't to be selected couldn't one positive aspect of your candidacy be that it highlighted the need for a debate about what the World Bank is supposed to be about and how it is supposed to be run?

I have to say, I am trying to become World Bank president and I am not mainly trying to have a debate. I view this as a very serious pressing issue right now and I hope that the bank doesn't drift more because if it does it will be very very sad and dangerous for the world. So I am hoping that this is a successful effort to help the world - both my own country the United States and other governments - appreciate that drift or cynicism or complacency has no role when it comes to sustainable development.

And finally, if you had to give a percentage figure for your chances, what would that figure be?

It's still an uphill battle. I don't think that I am having a difficulty convincing people of my competencies, qualifications and track record. But I do think it may be hard to swallow that this should diverge from the normal, political insider process. And that seems to be pretty deeply rooted. So I think that this is still an uphill effort.

Interview: Michael Knigge
Editor: Rob Mudge