The new president of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim, who began his five-year term on July 1, faces many challenges reforming the international financial institution and promoting its goal of reducing global poverty.
There are still 1.3 billion people living on less than $1.25 per day, 22 percent of the total population of the world's developing countries and regions. This is a far cry from a world free of poverty, and there is still much to be done.
There is no doubt that over the past 60 years, the World Bank has played a very important role in helping developing countries fight poverty. However, to meet the challenges of the changing international economic situation, the World Bank must adapt and evolve.
To support infrastructure construction, energy, agriculture, education, and other fields in developing countries has been the main work of the World Bank. But this support usually came with harsh conditions attached, which damaged its impartiality and fairness.
In recent years, the collective rising of emerging countries has changed the global economic landscape. Developing countries have more access to funds, and the World Bank risks being marginalized. In 1995, about 17 percent of external assistance to the world's poorest countries came from the World Bank. Today it is less than half that.
To adjust to these changes, the World Bank has tried to reform its assistance mechanism and sought to cultivate long-term, sustainable market capacity in developing countries. To this end, in the past few years, it has tried to accompany financial assistance with knowledge assistance.
The continuous reform and updating of its concept of development is crucial if the World Bank is to strengthen its capacity for international coordination and crisis response, its ability to mobilize global resources, and its effectiveness in promoting global economic stability and growth.
For many developing countries the biggest challenge they face is creating jobs, and they want the World Bank to increase investment in human capital.
As an international financial organization whose role is to help developing countries eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development, the World Bank has a greater responsibility than ever before.
