Wednesday, April 26th, 2023
9-10:30 p.m EST
Zoom
The Institute for International Economic Policy is pleased to invite you to join us on Wednesday, April 12th, 2023 to hear from a distinguished panel comprising Nancy Birdsall (Center for Global Development), Ana Palacios (Palacio y Asociados and Georgetown), and Johannes Linn (Brookings). The panel will discuss “Reshaping the World Bank for the 21st Century: An Agenda for the New President” in a session moderated by IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Ajay Chhibber. IIEP Director Remi Jedwab will introduce the session.
With the nomination of Ajay Banga by the US administration as the next World Bank president there is a unique opportunity to reshape the institution for the needs of the 21st century. This would include changing its strategic direction with a much greater focus on tackling climate change, as it pursues poverty eradication and shared prosperity. It must also include making its governance structure more representative of a changed global economic landscape and using its capital in more innovative ways to harness the vast sums of private capital to meet the challenges of sustainable development across the world. It must also find ways to focus more on global public goods as it helps individual countries address these challenges.
About the Speakers:
Nancy Birdsal
l is president emeritus and a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, a policy-oriented research institution that opened its doors in Washington, DC in October 2001. Prior to launching the Center, Birdsall served for three years as senior associate and director of the Economic Reform Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her work at Carnegie focused on issues of globalization and inequality, as well as on the reform of the international financial institutions.
From 1993 to 1998, Birdsall was executive vice-president of the Inter-American Development Bank, the largest of the regional development banks, where she oversaw a $30 billion public and private loan portfolio. Before joining the Inter-American Development Bank, she spent 14 years in research, policy, and management positions at the World Bank, including as director of the Policy Research Department.
Birdsall holds a PhD in economics from Yale University and an MA in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Ana Palacio was the first woman to serve as Foreign Minister of Spain, from 2002-2004. Before this, she was a member of the Spanish Parliament, where she chaired the Joint Committee of the two Houses for European Affairs. She also served as a member of the European Parliament, where she chaired the Legal Affairs and Internal Market Committee, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee and the Conference of the Committee Chairs, the most senior decision-making body on legislative policy and programs. As the Head of the Spanish Delegation to the European Union’s Intergovernmental Conference and a member of the Presidium of the Convention, Ms. Palacio was at the forefront of the debate on the future of the European Union and drafted and led legal discussions on the European Treaties reform.
Ms. Palacio also served on Spain’s Consejo de Estado (Council of State), and as Senior VP and General Counsel of the World Bank Group, as well as Secretary General of the ICSID – International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.
Johannes F. Linn 
Johannes currently serves as Global Facilitator for setting up and funding the Systematic Observations Financing Facility hosted by the World Meteorological Organization. In 2019 Johannes served as Global Facilitator for the 1st Replenishment of the Green Climate Fund. In 2011, 2014 and 2017 he chaired three Replenishment Consultations of the International Fund for Agricultural Development. From 2005-2010 he was Director of the Wolfensohn Center for Development at Brookings. Before that, he worked for three decades at the World Bank, including as the Bank’s Vice President for Financial Policy and Resource Mobilization and Vice President for Europe and Central Asia.
About the Moderator:
Ajay Chhibber is Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP), George Washington University, Washington D.C., Senior Visiting Professor at the Indian Council for Research on India’s Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.
He was the first Director General, Independent Evaluation Office, India (Minister of State) and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. He also was Chief Economic Advisor to FICCI and now serves on CII’s Economic Advisory Council. He served earlier as Assistant Secretary General, UN and Assistant Administrator, UNDP where he was responsible for work on Asia and the Pacific. At the World Bank he served in senior positions as Country Director in Turkey and Vietnam, and Division Chief for Indonesia and the Pacific as well as the Director and Lead Author of the seminal 1997 World Development Report on the Role of the State.
He has a Ph. D from Stanford University, an MA from the Delhi School of Economics and was awarded the David Rajaram Prize for best all rounder at St Stephen’s College, Delhi University where he received BA Hons in Economics. He has also done advanced management courses at Harvard University and at INSEAD, France.
Cosponsored by GW-CIBER and the Growth Dialogue
