Publication: Address Presenting the First Annual Report
Loading...
Published
1946-09-30
ISSN
Date
2019-05-10
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Eugene Meyer, President of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, presented the First Annual Report by the Executive Directors to the Board of Governors. The report had its genesis over three years during a war in which nearly all mankind was engaged. Meyer details the happenings from 1944 to 1946 and the founding of the organization. The Bank was created to assist in the reconstruction and development of its members by investing capital for productive purposes. Key personnel have been appointed, and working procedures developed. The Bank commenced formal operations on June 25th. Loan requests have been received from two countries. Meyer expects to be lending large sums of money. The goal is to promote peace and prosperity through monetary stabilization and the restoration of international credit, thereby improving the lot of humanity.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Meyer, Eugene. 1946. Address Presenting the First Annual Report. Meeting of the Board of Governors, Washington, DC, September 30, 1946;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31686 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Address at the Annual Meeting of the Life Insurance Association of America(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1946-12-13)Eugene Meyer, the recently resigned President of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, spoke about stepping down to allow a permanent head to take over operations. He spoke about insurance companies of the nation and how they are an important factor in its social security. He discussed the Bank's lending operations. Most of the funds must be obtained through the sale of debentures in the public markets from time to time. The security behind the Bank's obligations its reserves, its paid-in capital on hand and its ability to call upon its members for part or all of the remaining eighty percent of their subscriptions. He highlighted the importance of the International Monetary Fund which has the task of bringing stability into the chaotic area of international currency exchange. He concluded by saying that whether we live in a borrowing or lending country we can all play our part in improving international relations and in strengthening the forces which benefit men in their daily lives.Publication Address at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Political Science(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1946-11-07)Eugene Meyer, President of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, spoke about the marriage partnership between politics and economics in which divorce is an impossibility. The essential objective and the operation of the Bank which is to promote the international flow of long-term capital and to assure funds for the reconstruction of devastated areas and the development of resources in member countries. The Bank does not compete with private banks, but rather serves to promote foreign investment. It is empowered to extend credit from its own capital, borrow capital, and issue loan guarantees. World stability is threatened by a starvation for the materials with which to reconstruct. He stressed the need for settling the labor disputes without the disastrous strikes which bring about world starvation. The Bank can play the accelerating role of reconstruction and development for which it was established.Publication Address Presenting the Ninth Annual Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1954-09-25)Eugene R. Black, President of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, greeted two new member countries, Indonesia and Israel. He reviewed Bank lending operations, which continues to grow. He commented on the dangers of supplier credits in situations where long-term finance is more appropriate. He mentioned the technical and financial assistance extended by the Bank to development institutions in many countries, including the construction of electric power capacity.Publication Address Presenting the Seventh Annual Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1952-09-05)Eugene R. Black, President of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, described the lending approach of the Bank to various countries in the World. He discussed the proposed International Finance Corporation as a useful instrument for stimulating investment of private capital, both domestic and foreign, in enterprises significant in economic development. He spoke about sending general survey missions, composed of impartial experts, to help countries assess their potentialities and to draw up broad programs which will best channel their own energies and resources into development. He discussed development of water resources of the Indus River. He commented on the Schuman Plan for coal and steel in Europe. He concluded by saying that Bank has a vital role to play in development.Publication ICSID 2012 Annual Report(Washington, DC, 2012-09)The recent growth in investor-state arbitration has continued apace. International Center for Settlement of Investment Dispute (ICSID) registered a record 38 cases in 2011, and had registered 19 further cases by June 30, 2012. Included in these numbers are 3 new conciliation cases, showing an increased resort not simply to arbitration but also to alternative methods of dispute resolution available under the ICSID convention and additional facility. Such statistics should not be considered in isolation from their broader economic context. There have been unprecedented increases in global flows of foreign direct investment in the last two decades. These statistics must also be read in light of the fact that international investment law and investor-state dispute settlement are a new discipline. ICSID continues to play a vital role in the evolving international investment legal system. Its primary job is very specific: to offer foreign investors and host States an impartial, effective and accessible facility for arbitration and conciliation of international investment disputes. ICSID has taken numerous steps in the past year to enhance its capacity to fulfill this role. In September of 2011, ICSID announced a new list of Chairman's appointees to the panel of arbitrators and panel of conciliators. ICSID will continue its efforts to provide excellent service to disputing parties in the upcoming year.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication The Institutional Economics of Water : A Cross-Country Analysis of Institutions and Performance(Washington, DC: World Bank and Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2004)This book provides a detailed and comprehensive evaluation of water reform and water sector performance from the perspectives of institutional economics and political economy. It integrates institutional theory with resource economics, and set against an exhaustive review of the theoretical and empirical literature, the authors develop an alternative methodology to quantitatively assess the performance of institutions in the context of water. This methodology is built on the principle of 'institutional ecology', the 'institutional decomposition and analysis' framework, and the 'subjective theory' of institutional change. Using this new methodology, plus information collected through an international survey of 127 water experts, the authors present a detailed empirical analysis of the process of institution-performance interaction in the water sector. Relying on the institutional transaction cost approach and an extensive cross-country review of recent water sector reforms, they also provide evidence on the relative role of various factors that influence the extent and depth of water institutional reforms in 43 countries and regions around the world. The book concludes with far reaching implications for the theory and policy of water sector reform in particular and institutional reform in general.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Gabonese Republic Report on Growth and Employment(Washington, DC, 2013-06)In 2009 the Gabonese authorities defined a new vision whose strategic guidelines are detailed in an operational plan, the strategic plan for an emerging Gabon (PSGE) whose goal is to turn Gabon into an emerging country within one generation. PSGE includes an ambitious public investment program to develop basic infrastructure and to create the necessary economic environment for the emergence of a diversified economy. The major challenge for PSGE, and how it can be different from previous development plans, will be to become a growth model that is both sustainable and inclusive, leading to a significant improvement in the revenue and living conditions of all Gabonese people. This report is a contribution to the debate on how to achieve this goal. It was developed as part of the implementation of a new World Bank intervention strategy in Gabon wherein competitiveness and employment is the first pillar. It identifies the main obstacles to the low impact of economic growth on employment in Gabon and makes recommendations that will foster dialogue between the World Bank and the Gabonese authorities on the subject. The report is divided into three parts: (i) an analysis of Gabons economic performance since the independence and its effect on employment, (ii) an analysis of the main characteristics of the labor market, and (iii) a review of the main obstacles to job creation. The conclusion recommends some options for reforming the labor market as well as the legal and institutional framework for employment promotion in Gabon.Publication From Vulnerability to Entrepreneurship(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-21)Certain groups in Croatia still face barriers and challenges in initiating, owning, and scaling a business. Women and people in older cohorts (ages 50–64) represent one of the largest groups of “missing” entrepreneurs – a term used by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to describe underrepresented populations in entrepreneurship due to systemic obstacles such as limited access to finance, networks, skills, and regulatory challenges (OECD & European Commission 2023). Almost 80 percent of these missing entrepreneurs are women. The OECD also notes that out of a total of 148,214 registered companies operating in the country in 2023, only 21.4 percent were exclusively owned by women, with another 9.1 percent being co-owned by women. At the same time, Croatia has the third-lowest share of people in older cohorts in the European Union (EU) who are involved in creating businesses (OECD/European Commission, 2023).Publication Towards a G20 Strategy for Promoting Inclusive Global Value Chains(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-07-09)The paper draws on the Inclusive Global Value Chains report submitted by the OECD and the World Bank Group to G20 Trade Ministers in October 2015, refining and prioritizing the options contained therein. The original report proposed a holistic approach to promoting more inclusive Global Value Chains (GVCs) spanning: (i) trade, investment and domestic policies both in G20 nations and in trade partner countries; (ii) investment in expanding the statistical basis and technical analysis of participation in GVCs; and (iii) sharing knowledge on best practices on rules, policies and programs . This paper also takes into account relevant policy documents published since October 2015, including insights obtained from recently published reports on Aid for Trade.