Kim’s resignation follows a tenure during which the institution’s shareholders provided strong support to multiple initiatives to ensure that the Bank Group retains strong leadership in the world of global development.
Under Kim’s leadership, and with the backing of the Bank Group’s 189 member countries, the institution in 2012 established two goals mainly to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to boost shared prosperity, focusing on the bottom 40 percent of the population in developing countries.
These goals now guide and inform the institution in its daily work around the globe.
“It has been a great honour to serve as President of this remarkable institution, full of passionate individuals dedicated to the mission of ending extreme poverty in our lifetime,” said Kim in a statement issued in Nairobi on Tuesday.
“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,” he added.
During his term, Kim emphasized 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 announced that, immediately after his departure, he will join a firm and focus on increasing infrastructure investments in developing countries.
According to pundits, Kim was appointed during the presidency of Barack Obama, and it will be President Trump who appoints the next head of the World Bank.
It has been the tradition that for the Bretton Woods Institutions, the American appoint the head of the World Bank and Europe appoints the head of the International Monetary Fund, IMF.