VOA标准英语2012--American Seeks World Bank's Top Job

 American Seeks World Bank's Top Job

"They have more than doubled the number of people on treatment in the last 18 months," said Kim. "This is movement in the area of HIV/AIDS the like of which we’ve never seen before."

Over the course of his career, Jim Yong Kim, a medical doctor, has headed efforts to fight AIDS at the United Nations, founded a non-government organization that promotes health care around the world, and taught at Harvard's schools of medicine and public health. He is now the president of Dartmouth College.

The Korean-born U.S. citizen impressed President Barack Obama, who nominated him for the World Bank job.

"It's time for a development professional to lead the world’s largest development agency," said Obama. 

Japan’s Finance Minister Jun Azumi says Kim's work at the World Health Organization was impressive.

"He was a great success on the AIDS problem. He is an extremely suitable candidate for president of the World Bank," said Azumi.

Some development experts, though, say the bank focuses on promoting economic growth to pay for health care, education, and infrastructure¹. 

World Bank veteran Uri Dadush is now with the Peterson Institute for International Economics. 

" His [Kim’s] background is actually very narrow. Focused on health, whereas the bank has maybe 20 different sectors² of activity," said Dadush.

Nancy Birsdall of the Center for Global Development says Kim may change the World Bank’s culture. 

"He [Kim] is very keen on what I would call developing a learning culture, based on evidence, that the role of the bank as a knowledge bank should be emphasized," she said.

Birdsall says Kim is likely to push the bank harder to form partnerships³ with emerging nations, do more listening, and be quick to learn from projects that fail and apply those lessons to new areas. 

The World Bank's president has always been an American, but many major emerging economies want more of a say in the choice of leadership.

While this is the first time there have been multiple candidates, many stories in the financial news say U.S. political and financial clout⁴ mean Kim will probably get the job.

1 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

2 sectors   

n.部门( sector的名词复数 )；领域；防御地区；扇形

参考例句：

• Berlin was divided into four sectors after the war. 战后柏林分成了4 个区。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Industry and agriculture are the two important sectors of the national economy. 工业和农业是国民经济的两个重要部门。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 partnerships   

n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系

参考例句：

• Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句

4 clout   

n.用手猛击；权力，影响力

参考例句：

• The queen may have privilege but she has no real political clout.女王有特权，但无真正的政治影响力。
• He gave the little boy a clout on the head.他在那小男孩的头部打了一下。