In 2012, Jim Yong Kim became President of the Bank. He is responsible for chairing the meetings of the Boards of Directors and for running the Bank. The Bank President has always been a US citizen chosen by the United States, the largest shareholder in the bank. The person is then approved by the Board of Governors. They are president for five years, and after that they might be chosen again.
The Executive Directors, represent the Bank's member countries. They make up the Board of Directors and usually meet twice a week to approve and discuss loans and guarantees, new policies, the budget, ways to help countries and other important decisions.
There are 24 Vice-Presidents, three Senior Vice Presidents and two Executive Vice Presidents.
In 2010, voting powers at the World Bank were changed so that developing countries, especially China, have a bigger vote. The countries with most voting power are now the United States (15.85%), Japan (6.84%), China (4.42%), Germany (4.00%), France (3.75%) and the United Kingdom (3.75%). Under the changes, other countries that saw big gains included Brazil, India, South Korea and Mexico. Most developed countries' voting power was reduced. Russia's voting power was not changed.
The World Bank has been criticized by non-governmental organizations, such as Survival International, and academics, including its former Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz. Critics say that the free market that the Bank supports is to economic development if done badly, too quickly, in the wrong order or in weak economies.
In "Masters of Illusion: The World Bank and the Poverty of Nations" (1996), Catherine Caufield argued that the way the World Bank works is bad for southern nations. Caufield said that the World Bank focuses too much on "development". To the World Bank, different nations all need the same "remedy of development". She argued that to have even modest success, Western practices are used instead of traditional economic structures and values. A second thing the World Bank thinks is that poor countries cannot become modern without money and advice from other countries.
A number of academics in developing countries have said that the way the World Bank works only blames the poor for being poor.
One of the strongest criticisms of the World Bank is the way it was run. While the World Bank represents 186 countries, it is run by a small number of powerful countries. These countries choose who runs the World Bank, so what they want is what the bank does.
The World Bank is two different things: a political organization and a practical organization. As a political organization, the World Bank does what donor and borrowing governments, private capital markets, and other international organizations want. As a practical organization, it must be neutral, working mainly in development aid, technical assistance, and loans. Because the World Bank has to do what donor countries and private capital markets want, it says poverty is best solved by "market" policies. Many people think this is wrong.
In the 1990s, the World Bank and the IMF made the Washington Consensus. Many now agree that the Washington Consensus looked too much at the growth of GDP, and not enough how long the growth lasted or whether growth was even good at all.
Some studies show that the World Bank has "increased" poverty and been bad for the environment, public health and cultural diversity. Some critics also say that the World Bank has always supported Neoliberalism, forcing developing countries to follow rules which have been damaging.
People also say that the World Bank pushes U.S. or Western interests in certain parts of the world. Even South American nations have established the Bank of the South in order to cut down on US influence there. The fact that the President is always a citizen of the United States, nominated by the President of the United States makes some people unhappy. The US has just over 16% of the shares in the bank; some people say this makes the voting unfair because they have too much power, as decisions only happen if the countries that support it have 85% of the bank's shares. The World Bank also does not need to explain what it does to anyone.
A lot of the criticism has led to protesting. The World Bank Oslo 2002 Protests, the October Rebellion, and the Battle of Seattle are among the protests that have happened. Such demonstrations are held all over the world, even amongst the Brazilian Kayapo people.
In 2008, a World Bank report found that biofuels had driven food prices up 75%. This was important news, but it was never published. Officials said that they thought it because George W. Bush would be embarrassed.
The World Bank has been criticised for the way it carries out “the production, accumulation, circulation and functioning” of knowledge. The Bank’s production of knowledge has become important to explain why big loans are given out. The Bank uses many scientists around the world, organisations and other people to help make data and strategies.”. The information is created to stop people looking too closely at what the Bank does. The only knowledge system that is used is the Western one, meaning that the systems that other countries used are put aside and the Western one forced in. Knowledge production has become very useful for the Bank, which plans carefully how to use it to explain why they focus on development.
The effect of structural adjustment policies on poor countries has been one of the most important criticisms of the World Bank. The oil crisis in the late 1970s made many countries have serious money issues. The World Bank decided that it would help by giving out special loans called "structural adjustment loans", which meant the policies of the country had to be changed to reduce inflation. Some of these policies included encouraging production and investment, changing exchange rates and changing the way government resources were used. These were most effective in countries where these policies could be implemented easily. For some countries, especially in Africa, inflation became worse. Stopping poverty was not part of these loans, so the poor usually became poorer because the governments were told to spend less money and raise food prices.
By the late 1980s, people realised that structural adjustment policies were worsening life for the world’s poor. The World Bank changed structural adjustment loans after that. In 1999, the World Bank and the IMF introduced the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper to replace structural adjustment loans. Some people say that the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper approach is just another way of using structural adjustment policies as it continues to do a lot of the same things. Neither way has solved the problems of why some countries are so poor. By making some countries owe others money, many believe that the World Bank has taken over those countries' power to choose how they run their economy.
Despite the goals of “good governance and anti-corruption″ the World Bank needs sovereign immunity from countries it deals with. Sovereign immunity means nothing the World Bank does can be punished. Some people say sovereign immunity is a “shield which [The World Bank] wants resort to, for escaping accountability and security by the people.” Because the United States has veto power, it is the only country that can stop the World Bank from doing things it doesn't like.
The World Bank's work on a way to fix climate change and environmental threats has also been criticized.
People say it has no real vision and purpose, and a limited focus on only what it can do in global and regional governance. People also say it ignores some specific issues in certain parts of the world, like. issues of rights to food and land, and sustainable land use. Critics have also seen that only 1% of the World Bank's lending goes to the environmental sector.