Monday, March 07, 2005
Bono the Banker
He is world famous, and there is no doubt he cares passionately about development. Bono, the Irish rock singer, has many qualifications to be the next president of the World Bank -overseeing global development efforts, a job that becomes vacant in June when James Wolfensohn resigns.
The Bush administration is not ruling Bono out. In fact, the US treasury secretary, John Snow, went out of his way to say nice things about him in a discussion about the forthcoming vacancy yesterday. "He's somebody I admire. He does a lot of good in this world of economic development," Associated Press quoted him saying. Asked about the shortlist for the post, he replied: "I am not going to review here all the candidates that are on the list."
It sounded like a maybe, at least. By tradition, it is up to the US to appoint the World Bank president.
Other names mentioned include Carly Fiorina, a businesswoman who was recently sacked as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, the office and consumer electronics company. Bono can claim experience working with the Bush administration. He went on an "odd-couple" tour of Africa in 2002 with Mr Snow's predecessor at the treasury department, Paul O'Neill, and seemed to have gone some way to convincing him of the need for more development aid.
