Much of the correspondence at the beginning of the series concerns Bank efforts to play a greater role in the Paris Club's rescheduling of debts, including admission to informal meetings with credit participants.The appointment of Vinod Dubey as liaison officer was a response to the Paris Club's need, in return, for a central contact point in the Bank. The Paris Club refers to meetings held since 1956 that have arranged, when necessary, for the renegotiation of debt owed to official creditors or guaranteed to them. Neither the World Bank nor the IMF are members of the Paris Club, but the IMF has played an important role in developing debt restructure packages with commercial Banks. both the Paris Club and the commercial Banks require deBTOr countries to have agreed on a stabilization program with the IMF as part of the renegotiation process.
Copies of Senior Vice President, Operations Ernest Stern's letter of October 10, 1984 to Philippe Jurgensen, Chairman of the Paris Club, announcing Dubey's appointment as the Bank's liaison officer to the Paris Club regarding all matters affecting specific country negotiations and Stern's November 1, 1984 memo to Operational Vice Presidents on the same subject are in the files. Dubey was serving as Senior Advisor, Country Policy Department at the time of his appointment.
Following his appointment, Dubey continued to receive copies of correspondence forwarded to him concerning the need to increase the Bank's role at Paris Club meetings. Copies of correspondence between Stern and Jurgensen regarding a misunderstanding of the Bank's view of the Paris Club and the Bank's request to provide presentations to the Club on medium-term prospects of some indebted countries are in the files along with other correspondence between Dubey and Vice President, Operations Policy S. Shaid Husain regarding scheduling of these presentations. The files include copies of Dubey's correspondence with Bank regional officials concerning preparations for meetings, drafts of statements and speeches forwarded to Dubey for review before the meetings, background materials concerning countries seeking debt rescheduling, meeting invitations, Dubey's responses to the invitations which list the Bank's delegations to the meetings, back-to Office Reports prepared by Dubey and others representing the Bank at the meetings, and copies of press communiques regarding meetings.
A proof of a lengthy article entitled The Paris Club, 1978-1983 scheduled to appear in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law is inthe files. A 30 October 1984 note found in the files indicates that the author, Alexis Rieffel, formerly the representative of the U.S. Treasury Department to the Paris Club, was brought to Dubey's attention by Alexander Shakow, Director, International Relations Department (IRDD). A report of a 26 November 1984 meeting of the Coordinating Group of Creditor Countries for Yougoslavia prepared by Dubey and Joseph Ingram, Senior Loan Officer, Country Programs Department was placed in the files along with memos from Ingram regarding Yugoslavia sent to Dubey after the meeting.
Dubey was succeeded as liaison by basil Kavalsky, Assistant Director, Country Policy Department in January 1986 after Dubey was designated Director of that department. Only a small amount of correspondence after that date is in the files and there is no correspondence for 1987.
Also contained in this series are correspondence, memoranda, background papers, reports, handwritten notes, feedback on reports, meeting agendas and summaries, and other materials related to Vinod Dubey's participation in the World Bank's Debt Task Force. The Debt Task Force first met on July 6th, 1987 and was led by Jean Baneth. The Task Force was to re-examine the debt problems of middle-income countries. It was to provide an interim report, undertake country analyses and projections, and examine possible modalities of debt relief schemes and the role the World Bank would play in those schemes. Records date from July 8 to September 22 of 1987.
