(CNN) The nomination window opens Thursday for the single most critical position in global development, with huge influence on the future of the developing world and even the direction and shape of how the world deals with climate change. After the surprise resignation of its last chief, the presidency of the World Bank is suddenly and unexpectedly up for grabs.

Under tradition, though not law, the president of the United States is supposed to have the final say. On Wednesday, Donald Trump is expected to name as his nominee David Malpass, current undersecretary for international affairs at the Treasury Department and a confirmed Trump acolyte who has spent his two years in office doing his best to diminish the World Bank in a host of ways — effectively, driving from office prematurely the man Barack Obama named to this post, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.

If the World Bank's board allows Malpass to lead the organization, which channels lending to developing countries and sets goals in governance and reform, it could change the bank's global role substantially — and not for the better.

Putting Malpass in this job, and ignoring the value of a strong, independent World Bank — failing to choose wisely — could prove very damaging. Yet again, the President will be putting first what he sees as America's interests and not those of the vast stretches of the world that depend so heavily on the actions of the World Bank and its leader.

What is rapidly assuming the dimensions of a crisis erupted three weeks ago when the incumbent, Jim Yong Kim, a Korean-born American and former president of Dartmouth College, twice appointed by President Obama, unexpectedly resigned halfway through his second five-year term. Until a new president is chosen, the bank's number two, Kristalina Georgieva , a Bulgarian and former senior European Union official, will run the show.

Kim's resignation was a warning sign. By his actions, Kim seemed to be trapped between the Trump administration's priorities in cutting costs and the expenses of fulfilling the bank's global mission. And then there was the overhang of the American withdrawal entirely from such international organizations as UNESCO and the United Nations Human Rights Council . Though it seems unlikely Trump would pull out of either the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, mirror organizations that serve the developing and developed worlds, cuts in funding or a scaled-back mission for either body could prove catastrophic.

Which now leaves us with the critical question of the choice of Kim's successor. In recent days, Trump had reportedly been auditioning a group of wannabe presidents before settling on Malpass. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and even Trump's own daughter, Ivanka, were said to have played key roles in the selection process . At one point, according to a report from the Financial Times, Ivanka was being considered for the job herself. The White House said those reports were false.

Malpass, a conservative critic of the global organizations, could put Trump one step closer to setting the global development agenda himself.

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Still, there are other candidates. In April, the bank's board will designate three candidates, then select a winner. The most broadly accepted, with the apparent endorsement of the developing world, is former Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. I first met Okonjo-Iweala nearly 20 years ago as she was en route back to her native Nigeria for her first term as finance minister under President Olusegun Obasanjo. She saw herself as an unreconstructed reformer and described to me her mission of reducing dramatically her nation's crushing international debt burden. Her resume was impeccable: a magna cum laude graduate in economics from Harvard College, a Ph.D. in development from MIT. She spent 25 years at the World Bank, rising through the ranks to a top post of managing director.

Trump could do no better than to step aside and cede the post to Okonjo-Iweala. Many across Africa still remember how Donald Trump had allegedly referred to their nations as "shithole countries." The President has denied he made the comment. His allowing the best-qualified candidate to be elected would go a long way toward reversing the image conveyed late last year by national security adviser John Bolton's avowedly America First policy on Africa. And this would free the World Bank to act responsibly on all its activities, while demonstrating to China that the United States can be a willing partner and not merely an adversary as trade talks head into their most crucial stages.

What might someone not tethered to the blinkered American development agenda be able to accomplish?

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First, there's climate change. Kim made major strides, refusing to finance most oil and gas projects this year, doubling investments to $200 billion in low-carbon projects — directly contrary to the policies of the Trump administration.

But the most important accomplishment of any Kim successor would be returning the World Bank to a sense of itself as a central player in global development. Kim stepped down at least partly out of his belief that in the private sector, he "will be able to make the largest impact on major global issues."

In any case, it is now up to the voting directors of the World Bank to break with precedent (there has never been a non-American president) and assert its vision of the future by selecting a leader who is willing and able to fight for everything the bank can and should represent, especially to the least advantaged and those in greatest need of its resources. In the short run, standing up to Trump could be painful and expensive. But it is one area where the bank could deny Trump a legacy that will last long past his term as President.