NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

In an internal email to staff distributed Tuesday, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim set an end date for his reform agenda and announced that the global financial institution will provide more open-ended contracts for its employees — part of a new framework that supports the career development of staff.

Kim recognized that the change process hasn’t been easy, but stressed that it was “essential” to ensuring the bank could effectively fulfill its mission to fight global poverty.

“The past year has arguably seen some of the biggest changes to affect staff in the history of this institution,” he wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by Devex. “We needed to reorganize to make sure that the vast amounts of knowledge in our ranks can spread and be used in any country that asks for our help in finding a solution to a development problem.”

While each part of the change will be carried out at different times, Kim set the end of this fiscal year as a deadline for the implementation of all reforms, including any potential job cuts.

The bank’s nonoperations group earlier identified 250 jobs that will be on the chopping block, according to Kim, and affected staff would either have been informed by now “or will be by the end of March.”

More jobs may still be on the line, however. Regional and global practices units last week identified the final $100 million in required savings, which include further staff reductions in the operations groups. Kim said these cuts will also be announced by the end of March.