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World Bank Group
The World Bank was founded in July 1944 along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the Monetary and Financial Conference of the founding members of the United Nations in Bretton Woods (USA). Like the IMF, it is a specialised agency of the United Nations. Its original goal was to promote reconstruction in the wake of the Second World War, and to create stable currencies in conjunction with the IMF. Since the 1960s, its main task has been to fight poverty in the world and improve the living conditions of individuals in developing countries. It thus helps achieve international development goals.
The World Bank Group consists of five organisations:
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International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)
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International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)
Generally, when we speak of the World Bank, we are actually referring only to the IBRD and the IDA.
Spectrum of activities of the World Bank Group
The World Bank Group is based in Washington D.C., but it also has more than 100 country offices. The World Bank employs more than 10,000 people, around one third of whom work in partner countries. It is the single largest financier of development cooperation projects. Loans are always tied to certain provisions to be met by the recipient country.
The World Bank is involved in more than 1,800 projects in virtually every sector and in all developing countries - from micro-loans in Bosnia and Herzegovina to promoting education for girls in Bangladesh, from improving health care delivery in Mexico to reconstruction programmes following an earthquake in India. It is also working on the HIPC debt relief initiative and is involved in the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI).
On the initiative of the G8 states it was decided in 2005 to cancel all remaining debts to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank subsidiary IDA and the African Development Fund (AfDF) of countries qualifying for debt relief under the HIPC initiative, within the framework of the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative. The donor community agreed to provide additional funds to offset the financial losses to these institutions.
In the fiscal year 2009 the World Bank contributed 46.9 billion US dollars towards 303 projects in developing countries.
Organisation of the World Bank Group
The top-level decision-making body of the World Bank Group is the Board of Governors to which every member appoints one Governor and one Alternate Governor. When decisions are taken, the voting rights of members are in proportion with their share of the capital of the bank. This means that industrialised countries have significantly more say. The USA, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany together hold 38.3 per cent of the votes.
The day-to-day business of the World Bank is conducted by the President, Robert B. Zoellick, and the 24 Executive Directors. The five countries holding the largest shares of the Bank's capital (currently the USA, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom) each nominate an Executive Director plus an Alternate. The other Executive Directors are elected by the remaining members.
In 1974, the Board of Governors of the World Bank and the IMF agreed to set up a joint committee for the transfer of resources to developing countries, the so-called Development Committee (DC). This Committee meets twice a year and advises the Boards of Governors of the Bank and the IMF on important development issues.
The World Bank also works in development research. Every year it publishes a World Development Report.
Information
Contact
The World Bank
1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
USA
Phone: +1 / 202 / 4 73 10 00
Fax: +1 / 202 / 4 77 63 91
