President Obama will nominate Dartmouth College President, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, to head the World Bank--and it's "all but certain" Kim will win the position when the selection is made next month.  Both the AP and the BBC report that Kim's nomination is a "surprise" choice, possibly since the other notable nominees have backgrounds in finance and economics--Kim, as the AP details, is a physician.

Kim, who got both his M.D. and Ph.D from Harvard, is renowned for his work in global health and development, in particular his work fighting the spread of AIDS and tuberculosis. And Kim, as the The New York Times reported in 2009, was the first Asian American to head an Ivy-League institution.

Kim's competition, the BBC reports, includes Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who's been tapped by three African countries and U.S. development economist Jeffrey Sachs who has the support of smaller developing countries like Bhutan, East Timor, Haiti, Guatemala, and Chile.  But Sachs, in the BBC report, acknowledges that he doesn't have President Obama's support--which is crucial. According to the AP, Obama's support makes Kim's nomination "certain to prevail" since, they explain, "The actual selection will be made next month by the World Bank's 25-member executive board. The United States, as the world's largest economy, has the largest percentage of the votes."

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Alexander Abad-Santos