A number of individuals accumulated bodies of records from various offices in which they served. When these individuals retired or resigned from the Bank, these records were transferred to the Archives. Because the records cover the individual's career in more than one office, the records cannot be assigned to a fonds for a single office. Consequently, this fonds is established to describe these records.

Some records in this fonds are duplicates of others found in the Central Files or in fonds for particular offices. Others, however, appear to be absolutely unique. For example, Bernard Bell served as the special representative of the Bank in Indonesia from 1968 to 1972, and when he returned to headquarters, he brought with him some of the records of the Indonesia office. In addition, he made a study for the Bank on contract before he was hired as a regular staff member, and materials relating to the study are also found in the records. In another instance, Leonard Rist was interested in the historyof the Bretton Woods agreement, and collected duplicate copies of documents relating to it. When Rist retired, the Archives received both his correspondence files from different offices in which he served and the collection of Bretton Woods items.

Researchers interested in the offices in which these individuals served should review the sub-fonds descriptions on the records.

Note that the countries included in the East Asia and Pacific Region fonds fluctuated over the years; countries were moved from one Region to another and Regional Vice Presidencies were merged and separated. The only significant impact this had on the records of this fonds is the exclusion of Burma/Myanmar's operational correspondence previous to 1987. As described in the "Administrative History" field above, Myanmar was moved into EAP unofficially in 1987 and officially in 1991.

Also note that this fondshas been provisionally arranged into one sub-fonds and twelve series. Sub-headings are used to break the content of this field up according to sub-fonds and series. For a complete list of the provisional series, see the "System of Arrangement" field below.

Asia operational correspondence (sub-fonds)

The majority of the records in the Asia operational correspondence sub-fonds are the result of a records management decision implemented by the central files classification system and then, after 1972, by the Regional Information Service Centers (RISCs). Two "Operational correspondence - Asia" classes of records were created in which records related to Asian regional lending and programming, economic and sector work, and reference were filed together regardless of unit of origin. Records were thus created by the units of the various Asia and East Asia regional department and Vice Presidency iterations, including: department heads, and, after 1972, Vice Presidents; Country Program Department heads and staff; and Projects/Technical Department heads and staff. Note that records of the Technical Departments (AST) units that were shared by SAR and EAP between 1991 and 1997 are included in these records. See 2.3 for further elaboration.

Records relate to a variety of topics that pertain to operations in the Asian region and to individual countries. These include: Bank missions to Asian countries; potential and ongoing projects; conferences attended by Bank staff; investment promotion; technical assistance in the region; UNDP projects; operations policy; external debt; audits; co-financing; Economic Development Institute (EDI); Project Implementation Review (PIR); and sector research and policy work. Records related to multilateral institutions with which the Bank has a relationship are included. Institutions include: the Asian Development Bank (ADB); Private Investment Corporation of Asia (PICA); Asian Institute of Economic Development; the Colombo Plan; the Mekong Committee; and the South Pacific Commission.

Also included in this sub-fonds are a small number of records created by the Asia Vice Presidency (ASI) during its existence between 1987 and 1991. These records were not transferred to the Asia RISC and were thus not classified according to the RISC classification system. Records include correspondence and reports related to UNDP projects (specifically RAS/86/160 - Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Development) as