Records Relating to the Committee of Twenty and to Two of Its Technical Groups
- WB IBRD/IDA DEC-01-13
- Séries
- February 1972 - May 1974
The Committee of Twenty (C-XX), formally known as the Committee of the Board of Governors on Reform of the International Monetary System and Related Issues, was established by the IMF in 1972 to prepare a draft for a reformed international monetary system after the United States had announced in August 1971 that it was suspending the convertibility of the dollar into gold. The records in this series were compiled by Frank Vibert while he was working in the Policy Planning and Program Review Department (PPR) in the Office of the Vice President for Development Policy (VPD). The records primarily concern two of the Committee's Technical Groups: the Technical Group on the Transfer of Real Resources and the Technical Group on the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) Link and Related Proposals. The Bank was asked to participate in the secretariat function for the Technical Group on the Transfer of Real Resources, and Frank Vibert with Azizali Mohammed from the IMF formed the secretariat for the Group. Earnest Stern, Senior Adviser in VPD, was part of the Technical Group on the SDR Link.
The series contains copies of IMF and World Bank studies and other documents that were used as background materials for the Committee or that were drafted in response to specific requests from Committee staff; drafts of and comments from IMF and Bank staff on the Bank paper, Capital Flows to Developing Countries, that was prepared for the Committee; and the issues of the IMF newsletter, IMF Survey, that included articles regarding the Committee of Twenty. The files include: copies of President McNamara's correspondence with Ernest Stern and with C. Jeremy Morse, the chair of the Deputies of the Committee of Twenty; memoranda exchanged between Vibert and Stern; intra-VPD correspondence and other intra-Bank correspondence relating to the Committee of Twenty and the Technical Groups; Vibert's correspondence with IMF staff and with the chair of the Technical Group on the Transfer of Real Resources; copies of memoranda Vibert drafted for the chair's signature; and Vibert's copies of Stern's memoranda to the files regarding the SDR Link.
Records maintained for meetings of the Technical Group on the Transfer of Real Resources include: Vibert's correspondence relating to pre-meeting planning, copies of documents provided as background for the meeting discussions, lists of attendees, copies of the Terms of Reference for the Group, and Vibert's handwritten notes form the meetings. The files also contain multiple drafts and comments on the drafts of the Group's report.
Records relating to the Technical Group on the SDR Link include copies of World Bank and IMF documents provided the Group as background materials; copies of statements regarding the SDR Link made by heads of delegations to the Group; notes regarding SDR discussions with the United Kingdom and Germany; and various drafts of the Bank paper Bank Group Uses of SDR Link Resources.