This series contains records maintained by Mary Shirley who was assigned to the secretariat for the Private Sector Development Review Group, the Private Sector Development Committee, and the Private Sector Development Working Group. She also served as head of the Private Sector Development Unit in the Public Sector Management and Private Sector Development Division (CECPS) of the Country Economics Department (CEC) and later as chief of the Finance and Private Sector Development Division (PRDFP) of the Policy Research Department. As part of her various secretariat duties, Shirley also had the lead in preparing an annual progress report on the Bank's efforts to promote private sector development (PSD).

The PSD Review Group was created in February 1988 to assess the Bank's work on PSD and to recommend specific ways to strengthen and expand it. The Review Group's report was presented to the Executive Directors in August 1988, and, in response, management set up a Task Force led by CECPS to prepare a World BankGroup Private Sector Development Action Program. The Action Program was adopted in January 1989, and management then set up the PSD Committee in March 1989 to implement the Action Program and to report annually on PSD progress. In November 1990, President Conable established the Working Group on PSD, chaired by D. Joseph Wood, to propose how to best orchestrate the support provided by the IFC, MIGA, and the Bank to promote private sector development.

Specific records in this series include various drafts of the PSD Review Group's report and of the Task Force's PSD Action Plan; Terms of Reference for and minutes and agenda of meetings of the PSD Committee and the Working Group on PSD; multiple drafts of annual PSD progress reports and of the Working Group's reports on PSD prepared for the Development Committee; a February 1992 draft of the Third Report on Adjustment Lending; and 1992 - 1993 reports from the Regions on the status of their private sector assessments. The series also includes copies of background reports and papers, 1979 - 1987, on the Bank's private sector development efforts and on institutional development work in the Bank and Shirley's summaries of a workshop on PSD held June 27 - 29, 1989 and of a conference, Institutional Development and the World Bank, held December 14 - 15, 1989 at the World Bank.