After more than 6 years of providing unprecedented global financing, Jim Yong Kim, World Bank Group President, on Monday announced that he will be stepping down from his position.
“It has been a great honor to serve as President of this remarkable institution, full of passionate individuals dedicated to the mission of ending extreme poverty in our lifetime,” His resignation statement read.
“The work of the World Bank Group is more important now than ever as the aspirations of the poor rise all over the world, and problems like climate change, pandemics, famine and refugees continue to grow in both their scale and complexity.
“Serving as President and helping position the institution squarely in the middle of all these challenges has been a great privilege.”
Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank CEO, will assume the role of interim President effective February 1.
President Kim thrived on his belief that one of the greatest needs in the developing world is infrastructure finance, and he pushed the Bank Group to maximize finance for development by working with a new cadre of private sector partners committed to building sustainable, climate-smart infrastructure in developing countries.
He has also announced that, immediately after his departure, he will join a firm and focus on increasing infrastructure investments in developing countries, which further consolidates his long-held belief about infrastructural development.
In addition to working on infrastructure investments, Kim announced that he will also be re-joining the board of Partners In Health (PIH), an organization he co-founded over 30 years ago.
Kim announced that he will “also continue my engagement with Brown University as a trustee of the Corporation and look forward to serving as a Senior Fellow at Brown’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.”