Dr. Jim Yong Kim, flanked by President Obama and Sec. of State Clinton(Jason Reed/Reuters)
President Obama
announced his nominee, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, to head the world bank when current president, Robert B. Zoellick, steps down at the end of June. Dr. Kim isn't the only nominee, but tradition holds that the U.S. president's pick for the position is the appointee.
Kim has an extremely impressive resume as an infectious diseases specialists and a vision for development that has been lacking at the organization. He's a development expert who has actually created health programs for developing nations. He's a co-founder of one of the world's most effective non-governmental organizations, Partners in Health (PIH).
Dr. Kim, who was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2003, was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1959 and moved with his family to the United States when he was 5. He graduated from Brown University in 1982, earned an M.D. from Harvard University in 1991 and received a Ph.D. in anthropology there in 1993. [...]
While working with Partners in Health in Lima, Peru, in the mid-1990s, Dr. Kim helped to develop a treatment program for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, the first large-scale treatment of that disease in a poor country. Treatment programs for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis are now in place in more than 40 nations, according to Dr. Kim’s biography on Dartmouth’s Web site. He Kim also spearheaded the successful effort to reduce the price of the drugs used to treat this form of tuberculosis.
What PIH has done in the developing world is remarkable, showing that
community-based health care programs, with trained health care workers from within communities in developing nations, can answer some of the most troubling health issues for these countries, including those programs for multidrug-resistant TB as well as HIV/AIDS. The programs not only provide life-saving care for millions in these nations, they create self-sustaining communities of care that allow for self-reliance.
Oh, and he is also a former director of the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization (WHO). This was an inspired choice by President Obama.