Offline: The capture, incarceration, and release of Jim Kim

摘要

Jim Kim became the twelfth President of the World Bank on July 1, 2012. A year into his first 5-year term, what has he achieved? When he was plucked out of academia—he was President of Dartmouth College at the time of Barack Obama's unexpected call—his friends were amazed, delighted, and fearful. Amazed, because it was an incredible achievement to be handed one of the most powerful jobs in international affairs. He can call any head of state and expect immediate access. Delighted, because the health community knows Jim Kim as a vocal pro-civil-society activist. Here was a man with an unprecedented opportunity to do global politics a different way. And fearful, because he is a non-economist in an economics institution. How, his friends reasoned, would he survive in a setting where economic credentials are the standards by which one is so ruthlessly judged? Despite these concerns, Jim Kim's first few months were a glorious honeymoon. His appointment seemed the beginning of a hopeful new era for equity and rights in human development.