Last year, the World Bank halted it’s more than 50-year-old Young Professionals Program selection process, usually conducted in the spring, due to ongoing internal reorganization.
And while there has been a continuous shake-up at the bank’s highest levels in preparation for implementing a new institutional strategy, the program has returned largely unchanged for 2014, according to Antonieta Podesta Mevius, YPP program coordinator.
The new structure of 14 “global practices” and five “cross-cutting solutions areas” is designed to address major criticisms of the Washington, D.C.-based institution’s prior “matrix” organization model, which led to weak technical offices, regional “silos” and reduced cooperation across technical areas.