Obama's Unconventional Choice for World Bank President

- Common Dreams staff

The White House on Friday named Jim Yong Kim, a Korean-American physician and the president of Dartmouth College, as its nominee to lead the World Bank. The World Bank’s Board of Governors will select a new president at their April meeting.

Jim Yong Kim rapping at DartmouthDr. Kim is an anthropologist and a physician who co-founded Partners in Health, a nonprofit that provides health care for the poor, and a former director of the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization.

Mr. Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1959, and moved with his family to the U.S. at age 5. He grew up in Muscatine, Iowa. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. from Brown University in 1982, and then received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003.

Developing nations have criticized the World Bank for the American domination of the organization. The World Bank, consisting of 187 member nations, works to "combat poverty and support development," largely by offering development loans to countries interested in financing infrastructure projects.

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On September 11, 2009, Jim Yong Kim appeared on Bill Moyers' Journal:

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And in 2011, Dr. Kim performed the rap from the Black Eyed Peas song “The Time (Dirty Bit)” at Dartmouth College's take-off of 'American Idol'. Starting at the 2:05 mark: