World Bank appoints Kristalina Georgieva as chief executive

The World Bank has appointed the vice president of the European commission Kristalina Georgieva as its chief executive starting from January.

The Bulgarian recently lost out in the race to become UN secretary general to António Guterres of Portugal in September.

The position is newly created but effectively Georgieva will be replacing the bank’s managing director and chief operating officer Sri Mulyani who was appointed as Indonesia’s finance minister in July.

Georgieva, was also the former head of EU humanitarian affairs, will report to the bank’s president Jim Yong Kim who was reappointed for another five-year term last month.

“Kristalina is a globally recognised leader with a proven track record in improving the lives of those most in need. As humanitarian aid commissioner, Kristalina established herself as a global champion for the concept of resilience. Helping countries manage global shocks and threats is at the core of the World Bank Group’s efforts to end poverty and boost shared prosperity,” said Kim.

At her current position, as European commission VP for budget and human resource, she oversees a €161bn (£144bn) budget. She also served in a number of roles at the World Bank between 1993 and 2010 including director of sustainable development.

The European commissioner responsible for digital economy policy, Germany´s Gunther Oettinger, will take over the portfolio, which will handle talks on how to manage the EU's budget after Britain leaves the European Union.

The bank has recently faced a backlash against globalisation due to concerns that rich and western states have been the biggest beneficiaries of free trade. The restructuring of management and organisation by Kim has also faced opposition from some staff.

The Washington-based lender have however warned that inequality posed a major threat to its ambition of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030. It said that the number of people living below the international poverty line of $1.90 a day had continued to fall despite the slowdown of the global economy.

It added that faster growth and a range of anti-inequality measures would be needed to meet the twin goals set by Kim of reducing poverty to 3% and boosting the income of the bottom 40% of each country’s population.

Kim has indicated that his second term will focus on promoting economic growth through private sector investment infrastructure and boosting education and health programmes.