In November, David Malpass, who oversees international affairs at the Treasury Department, said at a congressional hearing that those benefiting from the World Bank’s lending practices were “the people who fly in on a first-class ticket to give advice to governments.”

And Adam Lerrick, Mr. Trump’s nominee to be a deputy under secretary responsible for the relationship with the World Bank, was a leading contributor to a study that questioned the relevance of the institution. The argument was that growing investment flows into developing countries rendered World Bank lending mostly superfluous.

Nearly 20 years later, the report’s critique remains pointed. Last year, the World Bank dispensed $61 billion in loans and investments. By contrast, investors now inject more than $1 trillion a year into emerging markets, financing every manner of corporate or government investment. That is more than the $900 billion the World Bank has doled out in its history.

The Middleman

It was 8 a.m. at World Bank headquarters in Washington, and Mr. Kim took his seat at the boat-sized table that dominates the bank’s board room. Its vast length evokes a more majestic time for the bank, when its voice — and loan book — loomed large across continents.

Mr. Kim, 58, was on a video feed, urging financiers in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia to put more of their own money to work in local markets.

In effect, he was pitching the bank’s services as a middleman, ready to back projects with guarantees and other incentives. No longer could the World Bank be the sole provider of loans, which, he said, are “crowding out” the private sector.

Mr. Kim is, by nature, a cheery person, but there was no mistaking the edge to his voice when he started talking about the World Bank economists whose pay is tied to how many loans they churn out. In his view, the bank needs to reward staff, Wall Street-style, for devising innovative financial solutions.