During its first years, the Development Committee created subordinate bodies to help manage the Committee itself (the Sub-committee on Administration) and to investigate issues and propose positions (task forces and working groups). In 1979 the Committee decide to abolish working groups, but task forces with a specific limited task and duration might still be established. Thereafter the Committee created task forces rarely, choosing instead to handle most matters within the Secretariat and the Committee.

An ad hoc working group on administration was established by the Committee chairman and met in Paris on 9 June 1975, to discuss the budget and organization of the Committee. This working group recommended the establishment of a sub-committee of the Development Committee, to be designated the Sub-committee on Administration, to consist of ten members to review the budget (see numbered Committee document DC/75-17). Although the sub-committee was intended to be a continuing body, it failed to gain acceptance and was terminated in 1978.

The Development Committee created task forces on private foreign investment (1979-1980), non-concessional flows (1980-1982), and concessional flows (1982-1985) and working groups on access to capital markets (1975-1978) and on development finance and policy (1977-1979). These bodies commissioned papers, held meetings and consultations, and prepared proposals for the Development Committee. The papers and proposals, prepared as numbered documents, provide important overviews of world economic mechanisms as of the beginning of the fourth quarter of the twentieth century. Of particular interest are records of a seminar held by the Working Group on access to capital markets in October of 1978. The seminar brought together representatives of developing countries and market operators and institutional investors, and the report of proceedings shows the divergent points of view current at that time.