Offline: the Kim Doctrine

Abstract

Jim Kim is one of us. A medical doctor, he has worked in global health most of his professional life. He was co-founder, in 1987, of the innovative Partners in Health initiative. He revitalised WHO's AIDS response from 2004–06. He successfully fused the fields of global health and human rights during a long attachment—1993–2009—at Harvard. And, after a controversial period as President of Dartmouth College, he became President of the World Bank on July 1, 2012. Most of those who work in global health were stunned (and delighted) by his appointment. Many World Bank staff were simply horrified. A non-economist had been appointed to lead an institution whose reputation depends largely on its economic prowess. For many global health advocates, the appointment of Jim Kim was the ultimate example of entryism—the infiltration of a self-proclaimed human rights activist into an institution committed to neoliberalism, a market fundamentalism that has been credited with eroding health systems in dozens of low and middle-income countries. Has the hype lived up to the hope of Kim's appointment?