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Though Polish voters in October ousted their right-wing populist government, recent elections in Slovakia and the Netherlands show that populism remains as malign and potent a political force as ever in Europe. But these outcomes also hold important lessons for the United States, where the specter of Donald Trump’s return to the White House haunts the runup to the 2024 presidential election.
At the end of this month, James Wolfensohn’s ten-year tenure as President of the World Bank comes to an end. Though much remains to be accomplished and consolidated, his achievements as leader of the international development community are noteworthy and provide a strong foundation upon which to build.
Perhaps Wolfensohn’s most important contribution was to clarify the Bank’s mission – to promote growth and eradicate poverty in the developing world – while recognizing the massive scale of that task and the inadequacy of previous approaches.
At one time, it was thought that since developing countries had less capital than more developed countries, merely supplying more capital would solve their problems. Indeed, this view provided part of the rationale for the World Bank: if a shortage of funds was the problem, clearly a Bank would have to be a key part of the solution.
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