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World Bank

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Submitted By vickymoily
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Founded – July 1944
Headquartered in Washington D.C.
Over 100 offices all over the world
188 member countries, South Sudan being the 188th member in 2012
Membership of the IMF is required
5 Largest shareholders: France, Germany, Japan, UK, and US

John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White were the intellectual founding fathers of the IMF and the World Bank

Keynesian Plan - John Maynard Keynes, during the World war years, played a decisive role in the negotiations that were to shape the post-war international economic order.

In 1944, he led the British delegation to the Bretton Woods conference in the United States. At the conference he played a significant part in the planning of the World Bank and then MF.
White was the chief international economist at the U.S. Treasury. In 1944, he drafted the American plan for the IMF that competed with the British Treasure blueprint drafted by Keynes.

Most of White's plan was incorporated into the final acts adopted at Bretton Woods. The IMF was given the role of promoting global economic growth through international trade and financial stability. One of Keynes' most significant roles was as chairman of the Bank Commission. Under his leadership, the Bank articles were drafted rapidly and successfully despite the lack of pre-conference groundwork regarding the organization of the World Bank. Neither Keynes nor White lived to see their visions of the IMF and the World Bank become reality. Both men died of heart attacks, Keynes in April 1946, shortly after returning from the first meeting of IMF and World Bank Boards of Governors in Savannah, Georgia, and Harry Dexter White in August 1948.

Gold exchange standard (1870–1914) and the Collapse of Gold Standard – WWI

The Second World War damaged economies of the most of the countries directly involved in the war.

The global war had completely dislocated the multilateral trade and had caused massive destruction of life and property

In 1945, it was realized to concentrate on reconstructing these war affected countries

World Bank has 30 founder members. India is also one of the founding members

The no. of shares, a country has, is based on the size of the economy.

Largest Share holder: U.S.A (15.85%) Followed by: Japan (6.84%) China (4.42%) Germany (4%) U.K (3.75%) France (3.75%) India (2.91%)

INTERNATIONAL BANK FOR RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT (IBRD)

Established 1944 | 188 Members Cumulative lending: close to $600 billion
Fiscal 2013 lending: $15.2 billion for 92 new operations

Provides loans and development assistance to middle-income and creditworthy poorer countries offering loans, guarantees, risk management products, and analytical and advisory services

China - 1,000 schools have been constructed, 7 million textbooks supplied, and 11,000 principals and more than 150,000 teachers trained

- Universal enrolment of poor boys, girls, and ethnic minorities in primary and junior secondary schools

Morocco - slum upgrading and social housing helped more than 60,000 households

- mobile phone market grew to 7.3 million users in 2003, from less than 117,000 in 1998

Mexico - 250,000 rural people in the poorest regions of the country received electricity through solar home systems

Papua New Guinea - 10,000 people displaced due to the volcanic eruption in Gazelle Peninsula between 1999 and 2007 were provided a water supply.

Turkey - A child is now nearly three times more likely to live beyond the age of five than in 1990. Turkey is on target to achieve MDG Goal 4 (“reduce child mortality”) by 2015.

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