A fighter against poverty | Jewish general

As head of the World Bank, he campaigned for the fight against poverty and corruption and campaigned for minorities and human rights. James Wolfensohn, who headed the international organization for ten years over the turn of the millennium, has now died at the age of 86.

The former World Bank president died on Wednesday in his home in Manhattan, as the research institute IAS in Princetown announced, to which Wolfensohn had belonged for decades.

BIOGRAPHY James David Wolfensohn was born on December 1, 1933 in Sydney, Australia, where the child of Jewish immigrants also grew up and studied. The passionate athlete, music and art lover continued his studies in the USA, but returned to Australia as a lawyer before entering the investment business.

As President of the World Bank, he implemented internal reforms and initiated a new strategy to reduce poverty.

As a banker he moved to London and finally New York, where he founded his own investment bank. At the same time, he was committed to the arts with his fortune, but was also committed to questions of environmental policy and international development.

In 1995 Wolfensohn became the ninth President of the World Bank. There he implemented internal reforms and initiated a new strategy to reduce poverty. The fight against corruption and disease also became part of the objective. Wolfensohn had to put up with criticism of the effectiveness of aid.

NEAR EAST At the end of his second term in office, he stopped running for the presidency in 2005 and then became a special envoy in the Middle East Quartet for around a year. His successor at the head of the World Bank was Paul Wolfowitz.

Under Wolfensohn’s presidency, the World Bank put its focus on poverty reduction and stepped up its fight against corruption, as well as efforts to give the poor a voice, the institution said on Wednesday (local time) in Washington.

Wolfensohn has received several awards for his commitment against poverty,

During his tenure, Wolfensohn also visited more than 120 countries to get an idea of ​​the challenges facing the member states. World Bank President David Malpass remembered his predecessor with sadness and “a strong feeling of loss”.

Wolfensohn has received several awards for his work against poverty, including the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2005. In 2006 he received the Theodor Heuss Prize for his work against the social exclusion of the Roma.

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