World Bank President Jim Yong Kim Announces Resignation

The World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has announced his resignation more than three years before his term could expire.

On Monday, Jim Yong Kim announced that he would be stepping down next month ending his six-year tenure. Kim’s resignation is likely to give the US President Donald Trump an upper hand in influence

“It has been a great honor to serve as president of this remarkable institution, full of passionate individuals dedicated to the mission of ending extreme poverty in our lifetime,” Kim said in a statement.

Kim became president in 2012 and is expected to join a firm that is yet to be named and is said to be focusing on investments in developing countries according to a statement released by the bank and will return to the board of Partners-in-Health, which he had co-founded.

Under Kim’s leadership, the bank set the goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 and ramped up financing.

In 2018, the World Bank also won approval for a whopping 13 billion dollars capital increase after complying with requests from the Trump administration to curtail loans to high-income countries like China.

Kim’s term at World Bank was also marked by high levels of unfriendliness among the staff, who were uncomfortable at a widespread internal restructuring that Kim pioneered.

The World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva will from then serve as the interim president upon Kim’s February 1 departure, according to the bank said in a statement.