World Bank President, Who Opposes Trump Climate Stance, Is Departing

Jim Yong Kim

Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, who is at odds with the Trump administration over climate issues, unexpectedly announced his resignation from the institution, effective February 1.

The 59-year-old physician and public health advocate was not scheduled to leave until 2022, the scheduled end of his second term. He served the organization for six years after being nominated in 2012 by President Barack Obama for two terms. Kim’s focus favored green energy investments over coal and fossil fuels. During his tenure, he mainly pushed for building infrastructure in developing countries.

“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. “The work of the World Bank Group is more important now than ever as the aspirations of the poor rise all over the world, and problems like climate change, pandemics, famine, and refugees continue to grow in both their scale and complexity.”

Kim has had issues with President Trump’s policies on climate change, but officials have said he left the multilateral lender under his own power. Kristalina Georgieva, the organization’s chief executive officer, will assume the role of interim president until a successor is named. Trump will hold strong influence over who the next World Bank leader will be. The US administration usually chooses the group’s presidents.

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Once he departs, Kim will immediately “join a firm and focus on increasing infrastructure investments in developing countries.”

He will also re-join the board of Partners in Health, which he co-founded more than 30 years ago, and keep his positions at Brown University as a trustee and a senior fellow.

“I look forward to working once again with my longtime friends and colleagues at PIH on a range of issues in global health and education,” Kim said. “I will also continue my engagement with Brown University as a trustee of the Corporation and look forward to serving as a Senior Fellow at Brown’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.”

At 189-nations strong, the World Bank is the largest government development funding source in the world.

Tags: Donald Trump, Jim Yong Kim, World Bank Group

As the Kentucky legislative session begins Tuesday, state pension reform is once again at the top of the agenda.

In 2018, the state Supreme Court unanimously struck down legislation passed by the General Assembly on the grounds that the way the bill was enacted was illegal.

This was the second time the pension reforms, which were to change the retirement benefits of new teachers and cut the number of accrued sick days used toward retirement, were cancelled by the courts last year.

Initially, the lower-level Circuit Court had negated the bill, but was challenged by Gov. Matt Bevin. He had set the measure in motion when he tucked the legislation into a sewage bill at the legislative session’s 11^th hour. The changes were then fought by Attorney General Andy Beshear, who won both cases. Beshear is running for governor this year, against Bevin, who seeks another term.

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“Any legislation must comply with the Kentucky Constitution and should result from an open and transparent process that includes all stakeholders,” Beshear told CIO in an emailed statement. “It is time for the Kentucky General Assembly to pass legislation expanding gaming and dedicate 100 percent of the revenue to our public pension systems.”

Despite last year’s setbacks, Bevin insists something can be done about the state’s $40 billion pension hole, and members of the legislature agree that it is a pressing issue.

“It’s well documented that we have somewhere around a $40 billion unfunded liability in the pension systems,” Senate President Robert Stivers told the Northern Kentucky Tribune. “We’re going to have to address that, and funding can’t be the only solution.”

Stivers added that actuarial analyses will suggest that “maybe only 20% of the problem is funding,” but even without that 20%, there is still a $32 billion issue due to “structural problems with the systems.”

Senate Majority Leader Daymon Thayer said he thinks there are enough state senators willing to pass “significant pension reform.”

“Our members in the Senate understand that this is a crisis and that we have to take some significant steps,” he said in an interview with news outlet WDRB.com.

Kentucky’s pension plan is 31% funded.

However, changes to the retirement systems are not the highest priority on state lawmakers’ agenda. They place a high priority on getting a school safety bill passed. This is in response to the Marshall County High School shooting last January, which saw the death of two students and the wounding of 19 others.

A bipartisan task force has been studying the school safety problem since June.

Governor Bevin could not be reached for comment.

Tags: Andy Beshear, Governor Matt Bevin, Kentucky, Kentucky Pension Crisis, Pension