A Good Sign at the World Bank: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Named Managing Director

With my colleagues at the Center for Global Development, I extend hearty congratulations to Bob Zoellick for recruiting back to the World Bank Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala , the distinguished former minister of finance of Nigeria, as one of now three managing directors reporting to him. CGD supporters who don't know Dr. Okonjo-Iweala should watch our 2006 video to see her speaking with her usual warmth and passion (in this case thanking us at the Center for our help on resolving the Nigeria debt problem!) Readers who missed her Sabot Memorial Lecture at the Center last June should see what she had to say about political corruption—how the need to raise big money to manage political campaigns is corrupting politics in Africa's new democracies.Ngozi has been a generous supporter with her time and wisdom of the Center, and I take this occasion to thank her publicly. Only yesterday she spent more than an hour advising me and colleagues on our initiative called Progress-Based Aid, and will chair a meeting on that issue for us with African Ministers and other development practitioners and scholars at the Center at the time of the IMF/World Bank meetings. It is good for the world as well as the World Bank that her immense talents will once again be deployed at the Bank.The Bank now has three African women at the Vice-President and higher positions. I count that as a good sign of progress for the world and the World Bank.