Washington

WORLD Bank staff delivered a broadside against its sitting president this week, saying the global lender faced a "crisis of leadership" and risked irrelevance on the world stage. The rebuke, made in an open letter from the bank's staff association, came as informal talks have reportedly begun on choosing the bank's next president.

Current president Jim Yong Kim, whose term ends in less than a year, has not officially declared whether he wishes to stay on. Since taking office in 2012, Dr Kim has undertaken a cross-cutting structural reform which has left many staff members uneasy. Internal surveys have shown that large proportions of bank staff feel distrustful of senior management.