Originally published on the CGS blog on May 3, 2007.
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has been on the defensive for the past few weeks. Many nations are calling upon him to resign due to the ‘scandal’ that has brewed over a sweetheart financial deal he made for his, well, his sweetheart, who happens to be on the World Bank staff.
Many news outlets have focused on Wolfowitz’s relationship and the financial package he arranged for his significant other. Some, like columnist extraordinaire, David Ignatius, The Washington Post, have zeroed in on Wolfowitz’s failings as a manager. Ignatius writes:
Wolfowitz has failed at the World Bank not because his underlings were out to get him (though many probably were) but because he treated the organization itself as an enemy. He saw its professional staff as an impediment to achieving his goals, rather than as a potential ally. Instead of heeding advice to work with the prickly international staff and win them over, he installed a palace guard of Americans who, like him, exuded the cocky “we know best” confidence of the Bush administration.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial supporting Wolfowitz makes the following point:
Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s poorest region, and Mr. Wolfowitz has appropriately made it his top priority. On his first day on the job, he met with a large group of African ambassadors and advocates. His first trip as bank president was a swing through Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa.
The Journal’s point is well taken, but it is exactly the reason for Wolfowitz’s failing: his hypocrisy. While he has publicly said all the right things about addressing poverty, hunger and disease in sub-Saharan Africa while also rooting out corruption in developing nation’s in order to facilitate the Bank’s development goals Wolfowitz’s own corrupt actions involving his girlfriend’s financial package will be his undoing.
As the old saying goes, absolute power corrupts, absolutely.
