World Bank Group Archives Catalog

The country correspondence files contain miscellaneous correspondence with persons and businesses from particular countries, mostly for the period after Woods' tenure as Bank President. They include invitations, thank you letters,travel arrangements and some printed brochures. In the Pakistan file is a set of material relating to the groundbreaking ceremony for the Tarbela Dam in November 1968.

Country files

The series contains records of President Preston's briefings and talking points for meetings with Government leaders and representatives of member countries, background information on the country, country strategy papers, and internal memoranda. A few files contain items from the Conable Presidency. Many of the records in the files are memoranda and correspondence of the Managing Directors; however, the records were maintained as the record set of country files for the Office of the President.

The files cover only the first three years of the Preston term. Files on countries during the last part of the Preston years are found in the records of Matthew F. McHugh, who was appointed Counselor to the President in 1993. McHugh remained in the President's office for the first term of the Wolfensohn Presidency and he continued to use and file into the country files he maintained; these records are part of the Wolfensohn Presidential records.

Country files

This series contains records of President Conable's meetings with representatives, delegates, and heads of the member countries; briefing notes for meetings with country leaders; general background information on countries and governments; press releases; correspondence with government leaders; memoranda of advice from staff members; and congratulatory and thank you letters. Topics covered in the records include external debt; Bank lending operations and criteria, and environmental concerns. Three files cover regions in Africa - Eastern, Southern, and Sub-Saharan - rather than an individual country, in addition to individual files on most countries in those regions. No files on the United States are included.

The files on the USSR are significant, as the period of the Conable presidency covers the late twentieth century political changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Of particular interest are the files on a joint study that the 1990 economic summit in Houston, Texas, asked the Bank and the IMF toundertake. The study, completed between July 1990 and May 1991, surveyed the Soviet economy, made recommendations for its reform, and established criteria for Western economic assistance to support reform.

Many of the files contain records dating from the Clausen presidency, some as early as 1984; apparently Conable used the Clausen country records as building blocks for his information on the countries. Similarly, the files on the USSR contain some records that post-date the Conable administration by several months (until December 1991), as the incoming Preston administration continued to use them.

Country files

WB IBRD/IDA EXC-09-3965S
Series
1981 - 1986

The Country files series contains the records of President Clausen's meetings with heads of states and organizations, representatives of member countries, government officials, Executive Directors, and Annual Meeting delegates. No files on the United States are included; these records are found primarily in the alphabetical files.

The files contain correspondence, memos, briefings, reports, opening remarks for the meetings, Country Program Papers, Annual Meeting country briefs, memoranda of the meetingswith the country delegates, press interviews, and background material. The records reflect the World Bank's issues with, concerns for, and activities in the country, region, or organization. The files on Algeria and Panama include photographs.