Ajay Banga, President Biden’s pick to be president of the World Bank and broaden its ambitions to combat climate change, was approved by its executive board on Wednesday.
Mr. Banga will assume the job on June 2 and succeed David Malpass, who was nominated by former President Donald J. Trump and has served in the job for four years. A former chief executive of Mastercard who was raised in India, the incoming president will bring deep experience with developing economies and financial expertise to a global institution facing a critical moment of transition.
The approval by the bank’s board of 25 executive directors was not unanimous. Russia, which has been largely isolated in international forums since its invasion of Ukraine, abstained. Russia signaled in March that it was trying to find an alternate candidate to inject into the process, but ultimately Mr. Banga was the only nominee that was put forward.
The World Bank president is traditionally an American citizen who is chosen by the United States, while the managing director of the International Monetary Fund is chosen by the European Union.
Mr. Banga will face high expectations and urgent questions about whether the bank will change its lending model, whether it will seek more money from shareholders and how he will direct the bank to address issues including poverty, global warming and the war in Ukraine. He will also face a challenging diplomatic balance, trying to satisfy the climate ambitions of the United States while maintaining the bank’s focus on development. And he will have to navigate a delicate relationship with China, a major shareholder and creditor that has been facing international pressure to allow poor countries to restructure their debts.
The leadership changes comes at a fraught time for the global economy, which has been gripped by a pandemic, inflation and war in the last three years. Those colliding crises have sent millions of people into poverty and reversed decades of development progress.
The bank’s backing of Mr. Banga, who was tapped by Mr. Biden in February, followed an extensive listening tour that included visits to eight countries and dozens of meeting with government officials around the world.
Mr. Banga is being appointed to serve a 5-year term. His predecessor, Mr. Malpass, announced earlier this year that he would be stepping down early following criticism that he was not sufficiently committed to revamping the World Bank’s climate agenda.
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