The World Bank’s board of governors on Wednesday elected former Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga to a five-year term as president, ushering in an Indian-born finance and development expert to revamp the lender to tackle climate change and other global crises. Banga, 63, was nominated for the post by US President Joe Biden in late February and was the sole contender to replace departing World Bank chief David Malpass, an economist and former US Treasury official who served in the Trump administration.
He has effectively built a broad global coalition around his vision for the Bank over the course of his candidacy,” Yellen said in a statement. A critical moment Katie Malouf-Bous, interim head of Oxfam International’s Washington office, said the bank needed “serious reform” to tackle the widening gap between rich and poor, but that would require huge new public investments and “guardrails around private finance that has run riot for too long.