Address to the Board of Governors

Abstract

In his final address to the Board of Directors, President Robert S. McNamara discusses the future role of the Bank during a time in which surging oil prices threaten critical development tasks. He examines four themes: the prospects for economic growth and social advance in oil-importing developing countries; a program of structural adjustment that developing countries, industrialized nations, and OPEC countries can take to maximize growth; the need to accelerate the attack on absolute poverty; and the role the World Bank ought to play in the decade ahead.