Reuters: World Bank’s new president skips China’s Belt and Road for Africa trip
“Nearly 40 world leaders and scores of finance officials, including International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, … gathered in Beijing for China’s second Belt and Road infrastructure summit, but the World Bank’s new president [was] not among them. David Malpass, fresh from a senior Trump administration post at the U.S. Treasury Department, is instead making his first foreign trip as the World Bank’s leader to sub-Saharan Africa to highlight his vision for the bank’s poverty reduction and development agenda. … World Bank Chief Executive Officer Kristalina Georgieva, who had been acting president during the leadership selection process, [represented] the institution at the summit … No high-level U.S. officials [attended], a State Department spokesman said…” (Lawder, 4/26).