President
The President of the World Bank is simultaneously the head of all five arms of the World Bank Group. S/He is neither chosen democratically nor is s/he representative of all of the Bank's countries. The selection of the President of the World Bank Group is based on a "gentlemen's agreement" between the world's richest countries: the United States Government chooses the head of the World Bank, while the largest countries of Western Europe name the head of the Interntional Monetary Fund (IMF). Formally the World Bank President is approved by the Board of Directors to a five-year renewable term. The current President, Robert Zoellick, was appointed in 2007. He has announced that he will officially be stepping down on June 30th, 2012.
Organization
Nearly 10,000 staff members perform the work of the IBRD and IDA, both at headquarters in Washington, DC, and in over 109 country offices. The World Bank is the third largest employer in Washington, DC.
The World Bank is owned by 186 member governments. Each member government is a shareholder of the Bank, and the number of shares a country has is based roughly on the size of its economy. This "one-dollar-one-vote" structure affords richer countries greater power in decisions-making processes at the institutions than poor, borrowing countries.
The United States is the largest single shareholder, with 16.41 percent of votes, followed by Japan (7.87%), Germany (4.49%), the United Kingdom (4.31%) and France (4.31%). The remaining shares are divided among the other member countries. All developing country borrowers have 39% of the voting share combined. The 47 sub-Saharan African nations command less than 6% of the votes.
