WASHINGTON (AFP) - The furor surrounding World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz exposes the need for overdue reform of the six-decade-old development lender itself, according to experts.
"It's as much a crisis of governance as a crisis of leadership," said Dennis de Tray, vice president of the Center for Global Development in Washington, who has worked at both the bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
"One can only hope that the very real governance and leadership crisis that recent events have generated at the World Bank will bring to the surface how fragile the current governance structure is, and hence set forth an international dialogue on these issues," he said.
Questions about the World Bank's relevance are being raised, including whether the post-war settlement under which the bank is led by an American and the IMF by a European is past its sell-by date.
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