The Human Resources Development and Operations Policy Vice Presidency (HRO) was one of three Vice Presidencies created during President Lewis Preston's reorganization of January 1, 1993. Following the abolishment of all Senior Vice Presidencies on December 1, 1991, Preston initiated a larger reorganization in 1993 that aligned the Bank's organization with the priority areas of its poverty reduction effort. The result was three new thematic vice presidencies: the HRO; Finance and Private Sector Development (FPD); and Environmentally Sustainable Development (ESD).

The vice presidencies were responsible for:

• Providing operational support to the Regions through participation in Sector Operations Division (SOD) task teams, undertaking specialized assignments for the Regions, providing ad hoc advice, distilling lessons of operational experience and disseminating best practices, and definition of sector and operational policies;

• Assisting in identifying and addressing the Bank's skisurells mix and training needs; * Providing information and intellectual support to interested actors outside the Bank;

• Liaising with the UN and other official and private organizations;

• Delivering complete products to the country directors in the 'clustered subsectors', where the small number of expert staff can most efficiently be located in the central Vice Presidency.

As part of the 1993 reorganization, the former Population and Human Resources Department was terminated and its divisions were split between two newly created departments: the Population, Health and Nutrition Department (PHN) and the Education and Social Policy Department (ESP). Both of these departments were placed in the HRO Vice Presidency along with an Operations Policy Department (OPR). The OPR absorbed the functions of: the former Central Operations Department (COD); the International Economic Relations Division (OPRIE); and the UN Office in New York (OPRNY) transferred from the External Relations Department (EXT).

In January 1994, President Lewis Preston created a secretariat within the HRO (HROAN) responsible for managing a program of the Bank's 50th anniversary activities.

On July 1 1995, HRO became Human Capital Development and Operations Policy (HCO). At this time education, health, nutrition and population functions were again combined in a single department named the Human Development Department (HDD). A Poverty and Social Policy Department (PSP) was also formed and placed in HCO.