Robert Zoellick promises to heal World Bank rifts

Robert Zoellick, picked by US President George W. Bush to head the World Bank, said his biggest challenge would be to "calm the waters" following the storm over outgoing president Paul Wolfowitz.

"One of the issues will be to try to calm the waters, but also then try and get a sense from people about how we can build some consensus about the direction of the institution," Mr Zoellick told reporters soon after Mr Bush's announcement.

"One can have the best strategy and ideas in the world and unless one can operationalise it, it's not going to be successful," he added.

If confirmed by the World Bank board of member countries as expected, Mr Zoellick, 53, will succeed Mr Wolfowitz, who agreed to step down on June 30 after a bank panel found he violated rules in authorizing a hefty promotion and pay raise for his companion, Middle East expert Shaha Riza.

Mr Zoellick, who left his job as deputy secretary of state last year to join Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs, immediately reached out in an effort to heal divides that emerged among bank staff and member countries in the battle that led to Mr Wolfowitz's resignation.

"This institution has been through a traumatic period and there is a lot of anxiety, some frustration and anger that has built up," he said, adding: "This is a group of first-class minds, highly trained, highly educated and devoted to the mission and this adds to the complications."

Mr Zoellick said he had already illustrated as US Trade Representative that he was an able, hands-on manager who held daily meetings with senior managers, implying a different management style from Mr Wolfowitz, who relied on an inner circle of advisors he brought in from the Pentagon and White House.

Mr Zoellick, who described himself as someone with a dry sense of humour that was often overlooked by the press, said he had already expressed a willingness to meet this week with members of the bank's board, who will decide his appointment.

He said he had also spoken with US administration officials, including former President Bill Clinton, ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former bank presidents Robert McNamara, James Wolfensohn and Mr Wolfowitz.

While it was too early to say where he would focus his attention, Mr Zoellick said he strongly believed in the mission of the institution to reduce global poverty.

Referring to the bank's role in fighting corruption, which became a contentious issue for Mr Wolfowitz, Mr Zoellick said: "My sense is that it is an important issue for the legitimacy of the institution but also for the effectiveness of its programs."

Mr Zoellick's nomination has already won the support of most European countries, although some developing nations have urged the United States to open the selection process to a global pool of candidates, based on merit not nationality.

Given concerns about the long-standing practice of the United States always naming the head of the World Bank, other candidates could still emerge before a June 15 deadline, although it was unlikely any would present a formidable challenge to Mr Zoellick's nomination.

Brazil and South Africa, which last week called for a more open process, have expressed their support for Mr Zoellick.

Mr Zoellick has a reputation as being extremely demanding but is also seen as a consensus builder, a valuable skill at a time of divisions in the bank and questions over its role.

"It's not easy to negotiate with him but it's easy to make agreements with him, since he is a professional of the highest calibre and he always keeps his word," Russian Economy Minister German Gref told reporters in Moscow.

Mr Zoellick, who served as a top foreign policy adviser to Mr Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign, has wide-ranging interests and expertise and has studied and commented on events in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

As the Bush administration's first US trade representative, he helped launch the Doha Round of global trade talks and pushed for greater US trade with Africa.

He later travelled to Sudan as deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to broker a deal to end the Darfur conflict.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Mr Zoellick must work quickly to restore confidence in the World Bank.

"I hope Mr Zoellick will re-establish, or establish, our confidence in the World Bank. It is absolutely crucial," Mr Kouchner told reporters in Germany.

Factbox

• The 53-year-old has advanced his career in and out government over the past two decades. He is now a managing director at Goldman Sachs investment bank and a vice chairman handling international issues.

• Mr Zoellick served as George W. Bush's first US Trade Representative (USTR) beginning in 2001. He played a key role in helping launch the Doha round of world trade talks, one month after the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

• The Harvard law school graduate advised Bush on trade and foreign policy issues during the 2000 presidential campaign and spent weeks in Tallahassee, Florida, as part of the team to ensure that Bush won the controversial election.

• Mr Zoellick's government career has benefited from his ties to the Bush family. He worked in President George H.W. Bush's White House as a deputy chief of staff and under James Baker, the former secretary of state, who was Bush's lead strategist overseeing the Florida vote recount.

• Mr Zoellick was also one of the "Vulcans," a group of neoconservative policy planners that included outgoing World Bank President Wolfowitz, who advised the younger Bush, then governor of Texas, prepare for the 2000 debates in his run for the Presidency.

• As trade representative, Mr Zoellick concluded free trade deals with Chile, Singapore, Australia, Morocco and Central American countries but was unable to finish world trade talks and negotiations on a Western Hemisphere free trade zone by a January 1, 2005 deadline.

• Mr Zoellick gave up his cabinet level office at USTR to become deputy secretary of state under Condoleezza Rice at the start of Bush's second term in 2005. There, he led US efforts on Darfur and the administration's strategy of engaging China as a "responsible stakeholder" in world economic affairs.

Mr Zoellick helped devise US foreign policy during a momentous period in the late 1980s and early 1990s that included the fall of communism. He won the State Department's highest award for helping develop the "two plus four" negotiations that led to German reunification.