The International Union of Credit and Investment Insurers (Berne Union) was formed in 1934 with members from France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Its purpose was to foster international acceptance of sound principles of export credit insurance; to establish and maintain discipline in terms of credit for international trade; to maintain sound principles of foreign investment insurance; to encourage a favorable investment climate; and to exchange information, assistance, expertise, and advice in relation to the commercial and political risks associated with export credit and investment insurance.
The January 1965 to January 1970 files cover the period when Andr Nespoulous-Neuville served as a World Bank observer to Berne Union Extraordinary General Meetings held in January and Annual General Meetings usually held in May of the same year. Most meeting files for the period include correspondence regarding meeting arrangements, provisional and final programs and lists of participants, lists of countries to be reviewed at the meetings, press releases (press notices), minutes of the meetings provided by the Berne Union Secretary-General, and the observer's Back-to-Office reports. Some of Nespoulous-Neuville's reports and other correspondence regarding Berne Union are addressed to the President of the Bank, the Director and Associate Director of the Development Services Department, and the Director, Development Finance Services where he was on staff.
The file for the 20 - 25 May 1967 Annual General Meeting in Wiesbaden contains a copy of a statement made by Nespoulous-Neuville at the meeting on the World Bank's Staff Study of Supplier' Credits from Industrialized to Developing Countries. The file for the 16 - 20 January 1967 meeting in Meg?ve includes a copy of a January 26, 1967 letter from Nespoulous-Neuville to the Secretary-General of Berne Union informing him that the Berne Union President had agreed at the meeting to send the World Bank all documents of general interest to the Bank. Most of the files dated after this letter usually include statistical data and other Berne Union documents not previously distributed to the Bank. The file for the London meeting, June 4-9, 1968 is the first to include a letter of invitation to the observer to participate in country review discussions at the meetings.
Nespoulous-Neuville left Development Finances Services before the May 1970 Annual General Meeting and was succeeded as a Bank observer at that meeting by Ugo Sachetti, the Director, Development Finance Services, which became the International Finance Division in the January 15, 1971 Bank reorganization. Sachetti served as observer through the May 1971 Annual General Meeting held in Washington, DC. Among topics discussed at that meeting were the responses to a questionnaire regarding the availability of export credit insurance to Ghana. Some responses are part of the file for that meeting.
