On the AIIB’s Non‐resident Board: Strategic Trade‐offs, Roles and Responsibilities

The AIIB’s non‐resident Board of Directors has drawn a lot of attention among experts and in the literature, although it is not an unprecedented feature among the existing international financial institutions. A non‐resident Board setting has implications for how the respective Board undertakes its role and responsibilities. This essay analyses the characteristics of the AIIB’s non‐resident board in regard to four roles or functions as defined in the literature on Board evaluation (Martinez‐Diaz 2008), that is, the roles of strategic thinker, political counterweight, performance police, and democratic forum. AIIB’s Board of Directors is particularly apt to perform the role of a strategic thinker, while taking on the other roles to different degrees of effectiveness. In spite of its successes so far, the AIIB non‐resident governance model may be subject to some future challenges as the Bank continues to grow, both in terms of its membership and operations.