This series documents the review process for World Bank Policy Papers, best Practices Papers, and information papers, most of which were generated by Policy, Research, and External Affairs (PRE) units. Also included are a file for Development Committee papers and files for annual publications such as the World Development Report and Global Economic Prospects. The files, which were maintained by Geoffrey Lamb and the Policy Development Unit (PRDPD), generally contain a copy of the initiating policy brief for the paper, copies of all the major revisions of the paper, copies of comments on the paper from high-level Bank managers, notes and minutes from meetings at which the paper was discussed (e.g. review meetings within the concerned complex, PRE managers' meetings, meetings of the PRE Committee, and meetings of the President's Council or the Committee of the Whole), and information about Board seminars regarding the policy outlined in the paper. The file for the Task Force on Environmental Action contains only the final report. In addition to the files for specific policy/best practices papers, one folder (filed under Pending correspondence) contains 1991 memoranda and intra-Bank correspondence on a number of policy papers that were still pending when PRD was abolished on November 30, 1991. The several files that predate the establishment of PRD contain only an initiating brief.

This series contains files compiled by Geoffrey B. Lamb while he was an adviser in the Strategic Planning Division (SPRSP) of the Strategic Planning and Review Department and, after July 1, 1990, an adviser in and later head of the Policy Development Unit (PRDPD) of the Policy and Review Department (PRD). SPRSP had the major responsibility for generating and drafting the President's addresses to the Annual Meetings of the Bank and the Fund, and more than two thirds of this series consists of files Lamb compiled while drafting the speeches that President Conable delivered at the 1987, 1988, and 1989 annual meetings. These speech files contain numerous drafts of the speeches, much intra-Bank correspondence containing suggestions for the speeches and comments on the many drafts, copies of Bank publications used as background materials, Lamb's handwritten notes from meetings at which the drafts were discussed, and intra-Bank memoranda regarding follow-up action required to ensure that policies and programs outlined in the speeches were, in fact, accomplished.

Other files in the series contain records concerning the Group of Thirty's Study Group on Financing Eastern Europe which issued a 1991 report on the outlook for capital flows into Eastern Europe and the policy issues affecting them. Included is Lamb's correspondence with Richard A. Debs, the chair of the study group; Charles Taylor, the Executive Director of the Group of Thirty; and Wilfried Thalwitz, the World Bank's Senior Vice President, Policy, Research and External Affairs (PRESV), who was a member of the study group. A copy of the published report is included in the files. Items filed under President's Retreat 1989 concern the drafting of a work program and other follow-up work emanating from the January 6, 1989 retreat on the Strategic Agenda Framework. Another file contains intra-Bank memoranda and reports on the relationship between the U.S.S.R. and the Bretton Woods institutions and copies of and comments on a draft of the 1989 article The Soviet Union and the Bretton Woods Agencies written by the Executive Vice President and Director of the Overseas Development Council Richard E. Feinberg. There is also a file concerning the drafting of briefing materials compiled in November 1990 for President Conable prior to his visit to the U.S.S.R.

At the end of the series is a small file (under Guarantees) containing seven memoranda and papers, June 1990-September 1991, from Alfred J. Watkins, a senior economist in the Policy Development Unit, outlining howthe World Bank could use its guarantee powers to facilitate private capital flows to private sector entities in developing countries.

This series contains copies of the outgoing letters, memoranda, and facsimile messages from the chief and other members of the Policy Development Unit (PRDPD). Included with the outgoing messages are a few incoming memoranda from the Director of the Policy and Review Department (PRDDR) and from the Senior Vice President, Policy, Research and External Affairs (PRESVP). Much of PRDPD's correspondence concerns the scheduling of review work on policy papers, comments on draft policy papers, coordination of PRE policy matters with the Board, and the compilation of information for the inventories of policy products. PRDPD had responsibility for managing the PRE Committee, and this series includes memoranda transmitting schedules, agenda, and minutes of meetings of the Committee, some of which include copies of the papers to be discussed by the Committee. Also included are 1991 agenda of the New Products Working Group and materials for the first meeting (September 4, 1991) of the Working Group on Military Expenditures.

The first part of the series consists primarily of correspondence (1994 - 1996) of Director Masood Ahmed (IECDR) concerning Bank preparations for drafting an agreement between the World Bank and World Trade Organization (WTO). It includes Ahmed's correspondence with Michael Bruno, Vice President and Chief Economist (DECVP), L. Alan Winters, Chief, International Trade Division (IECIT), and other Bank officials throughout the lengthy process of developing a document describing the parameters for a relationship between the Bank and WTO. Comments received from Bank offices on various versions of the document, including the version of the document circulated to the Board on 7 February 1995; a copy of the IMF paper on collaboration with the WTO presented to its Board on 15 February 1995; and the final version of the Agreement between the WTO and World Bank are part of the files. Correspondence concerning a Board Seminar on Bank relations with WTO held in 1995 includes Michael Bruno's 28 July 1995 report to Bank President Wolfensohn on the outcome of the seminar. The first part of the series also includes correspondence and briefing papers prepared for meetings of the Bank and IMF heads (Wolfensohn, Camdessus) with the newly appointed Director, WTO (Ruggiero) in 1995 and a Wolfensohn-Ruggiero meeting in 1996.

The second part of the series contains a copy of a 13 September 1993 letter from IECDR (D.C. Rao) to the Deputy Director General, General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, Jesus de Seade) informing him of the closure of the Bank's Geneva Office and the appointment of consultant John Croome to represent the Bank in GATT and Uruguay Round meetings. Copies of Croome's faxed reports to IECIT regarding meetings of the GATT Council, formal Council committees (Trade Policy Review, Trade Negotiations, Market Access, balance-of-Payments), and other formal and informal meetings he attended as the Bank's representative are in both parts of the series.

Most of these files appear to have been created while Wolfgang Siebeck (1986-1989) and Jean Baneth (1989-1992) served as Special Representative. A few files contain documents of earlier Representatives who served during the 1980s (Mahmud Burney and L. Peter Chatenay) and of Jean Baneth's successor in 1992, Sorsa Piritta. Documents placed in these files include not only memoranda, electronic messages, speeches, and statements prepared or received by the Representatives but also memoranda and other documents prepared by members of their staffs and other Bank officials.

A few files (Women, North/South Roundtable on Trade) contain only a single document but others are more substantive. The International Labor Organization (ILO) files (1982 - 1990) contain considerable correspondence of both Siebeck and Baneth covering coordination between the World Bank and ILO. In some of the correspondence, Siebeck is identified as Director, International Relations Department, Geneva Office (IRDGO). Much of the correspondence in the Human Rights file pertains to Baneth's participation as Bank representative at meetings of the U.N. Centre for Human Rights and preparations for the 1993 U.N. Conference on Human Rights. The file also contains some correspondence of earlier Representatives concerning human rights issues. The Gulf Crisis file (26 October 1990 - 16 July 1991) includes Baneth's (and his Administrative Assistant's) correspondence concerning United Nations Disaster Relief Organization (UNDRO) efforts on behalf of displaced persons in the Middle East during the crisis. Correspondence was exchanged during the crisis with the Vice President, Corporate Planning and budget Robert Picciotto; the Senior Vice President, Policy Research and External Affairs Wilfred Thalwitz; and the Director, External Affairs Alexander Shakow.

Both incoming and outgoing correspondence is included in this series. The incoming correspondence in the first part of the series documents Bruno's roles as Manager of the Development Economics Vice Presidency, Chief of Research for the Bank and the Bank's principal economic adviser, Chairman of the Research Committee, and Chairman of the Economist Panel. The letters from January to August 1993 were signed by D.C. Rao who was serving as Acting DECVP until Bruno's assumption of duties.

EDI funding and programs, selection of topics for annual World Development Reports, DEC Business plans, relations with the World Trade Organization (WTO), liaison functions with Berne Union and the Paris Club, and Terms of Reference for DEC department heads leading missions are among the many subjects of Bruno's correspondence with DEC department heads and Bank Managing Directors in the first part of the series. Responses to Ernest Stern, Chairman of the Loan Committee, on lending options and comments offered for Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) Reviews are also in the first part of the series along with Bruno's reports on his 1994 visits to India; Slovenia, Slovakia, and the Ukraine; Brazil and Argentina; and South Africa, Senegal and Kenya.

The internal correspondence file relating to Bank President James D. Wolfensohn in the second part of the series includes informal memos and notes from Bruno to Wolfensohn on Bank-Fund [IMF] relations and collaboration and issues raised in policy papers and presentations; background papers prepared for Wolfensohn on various subjects including the closure of the World Bank office in Geneva and Wolfensohn's forthcoming trip to Russia and Hungary; and copies of Wolfensohn's staff announcements. Bruno's elevation to Senior Vice President and to the President's new Executive Committee is part of the December 7, 1995 Announcement to Staff on the Restructuring of the Bank's Top Management. Also placed in the file is a copy of a Wolfensohn December 26, 1996 memo addressed to all staff announcing Michael Bruno's death on December 25, 1996 in Jerusalem. Bruno had left the Bank earlier in 1996. Filed at the end of the internal correspondence in the first part of the series is a small amount of Lyn Squire's correspondence while serving as Acting DECVP following Bruno's departure from the Bank. It includes correspondence concerning meetings with Joseph Stiglitz in January 1997. Filed immediately following the internal correspondence are comments and other correspondence concerning the 1994 WDR.

The external correspondence file relating to Bank President Wolfensohn includes letters from outside organizations and private individuals forwarded to Bruno by the President's office requesting that a response be prepared in DEC for Wolfensohn's signature, Bruno's signature, or for signature by one of the DEC department heads. Background information provided to Wolfensohn to use in his replies and information copies of Wolfensohn's correspondence forwarded to Bruno are also in this external correspondence file.