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Records of the Office of the President
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Records of President A. W. Clausen

  • WB IBRD/IDA EXC-09
  • Deelarchief
  • 1981 - 1986 (predominant)

A. W. Clausen became World Bank President in July 1981 and served a full five year term. Shortly after he became President, Clausen established a Managing Committee to provide overall administrative and programmatic control of the Bank's activities. The records of the Clausen presidency are best approached through the official files of this Managing Committee, which provide comprehensive documentation on virtually all issues before the Bank during those years. Both Clausen's personal records of the Committee as well as the Committee's official records are part of this sub-fonds.

Clausen was President during the world debt crisis of the early 1980s, and throughout the files are documents about the issues of debt management and the Bank's programs of sectoral and structural adjustment. Discussions of a multilateral investment insurance program began during the Clausen years, which culminated in the establishment of the Multilateral Investments Guarantee Agency (MIGA) after Clausen left office. Both the Special Assistance Program for countries coping with the global recession and the Special Facility for Africa to provide policy reform assistance in sub-Saharan Africa were launched during Clausen's tenure, and the Clausen years saw a growing emphasis on programs in agricultural and rural development and environmental management, among others. Evidence of Clausen's personal interest in these issues can be found throughout the records, but particularly in the extensive set of alphabetical subject files that show Clausen's involvement with issues and organizations. Clausen's views are also evident in the chronological file of his outgoing correspondence during his entire time in office.

The country files and the itinerary files on official trips are good sources of information on the Bank's relationship with and the economic situation in the member countries. The records include photographs of Clausen's visits to countries and to World Bank projects.

Records of President Barber B. Conable

  • WB IBRD/IDA EXC-11
  • Deelarchief
  • 1986 - 1991 (predominant)

Barber B. Conable's term as President was noted for the major reorganization of the Bank he directed in 1987 and the emphasis on poverty reduction as a central mission of the Bank. He identified environmental protection as an important goal, culminating in the Bank joining with the UN Development Program and the UN Environment Program to establish the Global Environment Facility in 1991. Conable supported an increased role for women in development and he appointed a woman, Marianne Haug, to his senior staff. Broad political changes occurred in Eastern Europe during his tenure, and he maintained extensive liaisons with international organizations including the increasingly influential NGO community. Conable also authorized the project to write a history of the Bank; Brookings Institution was given the contract for the study which resulted in the two volume The World Bank: Its First Half Century. Conable gave the authors access to his Presidential files, and the use of some of the files by the Brookings team is noted in the series descriptions.

The records of President and his staff are extensive. The minutes of his President's Council reveal the mechanisms of Bank management. The usual Annual Meeting files are supplemented by his country files and the records of his travels around the globe. The two series of liaison files show his political skills with varied constituencies.

The records of the Office of the President also include separate series of records of the Executive Counselor to the President, J. William Stanton; the Executive Assistant, Marianne Haug; and the Special Assistant, Anapum Khanna. The file of Conable's Executive Assistant, Jennifer A. Volk, on the lunches between Conable and Michel Camdessus, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, is a separate series, while within the President's files on travel and Annual Meetings are other files that Volk maintained.

Records of President Robert S. McNamara

Robert S. McNamara became World Bank President on April 1, 1968 and served 2 full five year terms and a partial term, leaving on June 30, 1981. The records are a very full account of his long and active presidency. Every part of the world is reflected in these records, as well as virtually every economic issue of the 1970s. Any student of the Bank during the McNamara years will find reading these records an essential first step for research.

When McNamara came to the World Bank, it was lending about $1 billion per year. When he left in 1981, Bank lending stood at about $12 billion a year. In addition to the dramatic increase in volume of loans, he refocused Bank lending beyond infrastructure and projects to basic human needs and poverty reduction. Using the term absolute poverty, his annual meeting speech in Nairobi in 1973 marked a turning point by identifying promoting rural development and alleviating the conditions of life to the poor as crucial development goals. He identified population growth as a major issue for the Bank to address and the Bank began proving support for family planning programs. The Bank also began providing loans for pollution control.

McNamara proposed the formation of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which makes major contributions to increasing global food production and reducing hunger. He mobilized Bank resources to launch an international onchocercieasis (river blindness) control program. He initiated two international commissions to examine world development: the Pearson Commission in 1968 and the Brandt Commission in 1977. The Joint Ministerial Committee of the Board of Governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on the Transfer of Real Resources to Developing Countries, usually known as the Development Committee, was established in 1974 to support international cooperation in development activities and coordination of international efforts in finance development, and to provide advice to the Board of Governors of the Bank and the Fund on all aspects of the transfer of real resources to developing countries. And in 1978 the World Development Report was launched, the Bank's flagship publication on development issues.

Records of all these activities can be found in the records of the McNamara presidency. An unusually large number of records are annotated by McNamara, providing unparalleled insight into the thinking and decision-making processes of the president.

The records also include files form assistants to the President, notably two series from economic adviser Irving S. Friedman that include his correspondence with both President George Woods and President McNamara.

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