IBD
NO4  A                                    wom. ANK
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
International Finance Corporation
International Development Association
, rINA,   181a8 H STREET, N.W.. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20433. U.S.A. TELEPHONE EXECUTIVE 3-6360
Hold for Release until Delivery               As Prepared for Delivery
Expected at 10.30 AM EST
November 13, 1970
Address to the U.N. Economic and Social Council
by Mr. Robert S. McNamara,
President of the World Bank,                  ision Librar,
the International Finance Corporation,
and the International Development Association,
November 13, 1970:   United Nations, N.Y.             #
Hr. President and Members of the Council:
I am pleased to meet with you again, and to report on my second year
as President of the World Bank Group.
A few weeks ago, when speaking at the Annual Meeting of the Governors
of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, I devoted a major
portion of my rpmarks to an expression of my views on the problems and
objectives of development in the Seventies. I will not repeat those
comments today - instead, for those who are interested, a copy of what
was said in Copenhagen has been attached to this statement.
'This morning, I would like to address two specific issues: the
operations of the Bank, both for the past fiscal year and for the period
covered by our Five-Year Program; and the relationship of the Bank to
the rest of the U.N. system.
The period since we last met has been an active one for us. In the
1970 fiscal year, the Bank Group's new loans, credits and investments
totalled $2.3 billion. The comparable figure for 1969 was $1.9 billion;
and for 1968, $1.0 billion.    Although our expanded operations -    particu-
larly under the impact of price inflation -- have entailed rising adminis-
crative costs within the Bank    we nevertheless concluded the fiscal year
with net income of $213 million. Approximately half of this net income


-1b
has been rezained in the Bank to support future concessionary lending,
and $100 million has been transferred to the International Development
Associatior.
* * * * * * *
The results of any one fiscal period, however, tell only a partial
story. As I indicated in my previous reports to this body, our view is
that a year-to-year perspective is not enough. What are required are
long-range goals that can serve both as the objectives we want to achieve,
and the guidelines by which we can measure our year-to-year effectiveness.
It was,with this in mind that two years ago we developed a Five-Year
Program. It had as its objective the doubling of the Bank Group's
operations in the period 1969-1973, as compared with the period 1964-1968.
If we succeed in achieving that objective, it will mean that we will
have approved loans, credits and investments in the developing world
during these five years that total approximately $12 billion. That
$12 billion will help finance development projects whose total cost will
approximate some $30 billion.
We have now completed two of the five years of the Program. The
interim objectives are being more than met, and I remain convinced that
the goals for the total period can be achieved.
Though those goals are stated in financial terms, their importance
does not lie solely, or even principally, in their quantitative scope.
On the contrary, their overriding significance will rest upon their
qualitative character.   Simply lending money -- even in impressive amounts
is not the purpose of the Bank. Our purpose is rather to assist the
countries of the less-advantaged world to develop as quickly and effectively
as possible, in accord with'their own aspirations.
Over the past two years we have made specific shifts in emphasis so
that we could better serve those aspirations.   For example:
We have enlarged the geographical scope of o=-i
Our object has been to bring assistance t7      -er number
of developing countries -- and most particularly to very
small and very poor countries. In both 1969 and 1970 we aided
a total of 60 countries, 75% more in each of these two years
than in an average year in the period 1964-1968. We served 14
countries which had received no loans or credits at all in
the previous five years -- countries such as Nepal, Indonesia,
Chad, Dahomey and Rwanda.
We have greatly expanded our financing of education projects:
projects that will reduce the drag of functional illiteracy on
development.
Lending for education during the past two years was more than
the total of all the prior years combined.


-3-
We h;,.e ititiated work in the field of population planning.
This has been done at the specific request of countries such
as India, Indonesia, Jamaica and Tunisia. The fact is that
we have been asked by far more countries for assistance in
this matter than we can service with our present staff. But
we intend to enhance our capability to meet the requests of
our member countries in this critical area.
. We have broadened and accelerated our work in the agricultural
sector.
Agricultural projects in the twenty-four months ending
June 30, 1970 totalled half as many as in the entire previous
history of the Bank. Our purpose is not only to help countries
grow more food for their expanding populations, and to encourage
agricultural exports, but also to provide a stimulus to industrial
growth. I will have more to say on this subject later.
. We have tailored our financing so that our funds will reach more
beneficiaries than before.
More than 20% of the Group's commitments were made to intermediary
institutions -- especially industrial development banks which
finance medium-sized and smaller industrial enterprises, and
agricultural credit agencies which serve the small farmers.
And finally, we have moved further in the direction of enlarging
the concept of development beyond the simple limits of economic
growth.
Such growth is, of course, necessary, and the poorer nations are
determined to achieve it. But we believe economic progress
remains precarious and sterile without corresponding social
improvement. We intend to give attention to both.
While the Bank Group has been expanding the volume of its activities
it also has been broadening its financial base. In the past two fiscal
years, the Bank has raised nearly $2 billion through the sale of its bonds
and notes in more than 45 countries. The Bank not only has continued to
draw large amounts of funds from the Federal Republic of Germany; last
summer, it returned to the United States market with an issue of $200'million
of bonds; and over the past year, Japan has become a major source of funds,
with the purchase by the Bank of Japan of $200 million of World Bank
obligations and of $163 million of World Bank loans to Japanese borrowers.
I am particularly glad to report that the process of adding to the
resources of the International Development Association is now well advanced.
The -first replenishment" provided for an increase of 60% in IDA's commit-
ment rate to an annual level of $250 million a year.    The "second
replenishmentl was intended to raise that figure by another 60%, to
$400 million per year. Now, subject to the necessary parliamentary actJ,,.
the 18 nations which contribute the bulk of IDA's resources have agreed
on a "third repleiashment" providing for zontributions to IDA of oar


4
$800 million a year for three years beginning July 1, 1971 -- a doubling
of the previous planned rate. I want particularly to note that three
countries -- Ireland, Spain and Yugoslavia -- which had not been contri-
butors in previous "replenishments*' joined the ranks of donors .for the
-third replenishment."
* * * * * * *
Looking ahead, Mr. President, there are a number of new developments
in process in the Bank. Let me mention five.
First, we have established a new division for the consideration of
projects of urban development. The problem of the cities is certainly
not confined to the developing countries, but it is made especially acute
there by high rates of natural increase in the population, exacerbated by
immigration from the countryside. The less developed countries are
urbanizing faster today than today's high-income countries have done at
any time in their history; already, half the cities of the world with
populations of over half a million are in the developing countries. Many
of these cities are crowding people together without the necessary industrial
facilities to provide employment, and with wholly inadequate services in
health, education and transportation. The result is squalor on a stag-
gering scale. In cities of the developing world, it is not unusual for
at least a fifth, and sometimes half, of the population to live in squatter
towns, for a third or more to be without water service; and for as many
as four families out of five to live in a single room. Such conditions
breed disease, low productivity, social tension and political unrest.
The Bank up to now has attacked urban problems largely on a project-
by-project basis: by making loans for water supplies, sewerage systems
and, in some instances, urban transportation. What we seek now is a more
comprehensive view of the problems of the cities: a strategy by which
the Bank Group can supp-rt programs of overall urban development rather
than merely isolated and unrelated projects. As a first step, we have
organized a mission to make a study of the city of Bombay, a city with
whose port development we have long been associated. We are attempting
to determine which approach, or combination of approaches, we can best
use to assist the rational growth of that metropolitan area. The Bombay
study, if successful, will be followed by similar analyses of cities in
other regions. Our intention in mounting these pilot studies is to
develop guidelines for future urban development financing.
Second, I want to say something more about the World Bank Group's
increased activities in the field of agricultural development. It is
impossible to exaggerate the importance of this sector. In nearly all
low-income countries -- as was the case historically in today's wealthy
countries -- sustained economic and social progress requires that rural
areas be productive enough to achieve a surplus, which can form the basis
for savings and for investment in overall development. The developing
countries as a group are far from achieving this goal. Moreover, accordn1E
to FAO's Indicative Plan for Agricultural Development, by 1985 as many as
400 million more people may need employment in rurel areas than are
mloyed -- or underemployed -- there today.


*                                 -5-
We all know that the improvement of agriculture requires many
different inputs: of capital, of physical components, of organization.
The experience with highly productive new strains of wheat and rice
shows that, among these various inputs, sustained scientific and techno-
logical research can be imsensely rewarding.
For the past several months, the Bank has been carrying on discussions
intended to lead to the formation of a Consultative Group, or some
similar mechanism, in support of agricultural research programs of an
international character, concentrating in the first instance on existing
and ne.- international agricultural research institutes. Such a Group --
sponsored jointly by PAO, UNDP and the Bank -- would be composed of
governments, international organizations, regional development banks and
interested private foundations. Its primary functions would be to identify
priority needs for irternational programs of agricultural research, and to
serve as a clearinghouse of information to avoid any unnecessary financial
gap in the support of these programs. Preparatory work is now virtually
complete, and a preliminary meeting to discuss terms of reference and
organizational arrangements for such a Consultative Group will be held
early in 1971.
A third concern of the Bank that I want to mention this morning is
with the environment. The deterioration of the environment is a great
problem in the industrialized countries, but is by no means confined to
them. Witness, for example, the harm to human life that some water-
storage projects in Africa and Asia already have dunw by encouraging
water--borne diseases -- to say nothing of the implications of the rising
use of pesticides throughout the developing world. Indeed the universal
concern with the environment is what makes the Stockholm Conference in
1972 an event of such great potential importance.
The problem facing development finance institutions, including the
World Bank, is whether and how we can help the developing countries to
avoid or mitigate some of the damage economic development can do to the
environment, without at the same time slowing down the pace of economic
progress. It is clear that the costs resulting from adverse environmental
change can be tremendous. It is equally clear that, in many cases, a
small investment in prevention would be worth many times over what would
have to be expended later to repair the damage.
In the Bank, therefore, we recently have established a small unit to
foresee, to the extent possible, the environmental consequences of
development projects proposed to us for financing. Even more important,
we want to work toward concepts that will enable us and other development
financing agencies to consider the environmental factors of development
projects in some kind of cost-benefit framework. I am well aware of the
complexities of the task. But I am equally convinced of its importance.
A fourth new development on which I wish to report is the reactivation
of serious discussions within our Board of Executive Directors looking
towards the creation of an international investment insurance agency.


- 6 -
This matte- has been o-i our ageuda for many years, but until recently,
governmental. support for such an agency has been neither sufficiently
strong nor widespread to hold out the prospect of success in negotiating
the necessary intergovernmental agreement. Recently, however, the
situation has changed. Among the developed countries, France, Italy,
Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the Benelux
and the Scandinavian countries, have all signified their interest in
participating in an international scheme of investment insurance,
provided satisfactory arrangements can be worked out. And the number of
developing countries -- from all three continents -- which have indicated
a similar interest is growing. I very much hope, therefore, that the
Executive Directors will be able to negotiate an agreement and to submit
it for governmental signature and ratification during the comiqg year.
Finally, among recent naw developments, I want to mention our plans
for the Bank's Economic Development Institute. This Institute was begun
experinentally 15 years ago as a staff college for senior officials
concerned with economic affairs in developing countries. To date, it
has graduated 1,165 Fellows from general courses in development, or from
courses in project evaluation. The influence of these individuals on
development in their home countries has in some cases been profound.
The demand for attendance at the Institute is now larger than can
be met by the present staff and facilities, and continues to increase.
We have, therefore, recently approved the beginning of a long-range program
for the further growth of the Institute. Last year, 150 individuals
participated in the courses given by it. The new plan provides for the
Institute to increase its enrollment each year for the next six years,
so that by 1976 it will be offering twice as many courses, and graduating
twice as many Fellows, as last year.
* * * * * * *
Mr. President, as I mentioned in my statement to the Council a
year ago, we regard the Pearson Commission Report as potentially one of
the most influential studies on the problems and prospects of development
ever to have been published. Although the Bank commissioned the Report,
it did so with the strict condition that the Commission should work
entirely independently, and come to whatever conclusion its members felt
were warranted. The Report was to be directed not to the Bank as such,
but to the world at large, and its analyses and recommendations were to
encompass the entire development scene.
During this past year, the Pearson Commission Report -- in its many
language versions -- has received worldwide attention. Its chief value
lies, I believe, in the non-partisan and objective view it takes of the
leading issues in the development scene -- both in the aid-providing and
in the aid-receiving nations. It brings us face to face with the principal
problems which all must deal with and solve.
As I have said, the Pearson Commission Report was not addressed
specifically to the Bank. However, some 30 of its recommendations for


-7-
action did bear upon the work of the Bank, and over the past 12 months
I have presented detailed analyses of these recommendations to the Bank's
Executive Directors for their discussion. With the vast majority of the
Commission's recommendations that apply to the Bank, I expressed agree-
ment -- and on many of them we have already acted.
But the most significant recommendations of the Pearson Commission
were those directed not to the Bank, but to the broader issues of
development policy itself. Among the most important of these were the
recommendations dealing with the organization of the international develop-
ment community as a whole. To this subject, which is of such immediate
and direct concern to the Council, I should like to devote the remainder
of my remarks.
The Commission gave a good deal of attention to this matter, and
dealt with various aspects of it in a number of specific recommendations.
The common thread that runs through all these recommendations is that
the past 20 years have witnessed the emergence of an almost bewildering
number of bilateral and multilateral organizations that in one way or
another are concerned with international development. While recognizing
the value of these instrumentalities -- and of the specialized experience
they have accumulated -- the Commission pointed out that the framework
which has evolved suffers from four basic shortcomings.
It lacks a process for joint and authoritative monitoring
and review of what is being done.
The multiplicity of assistance agencies is not matched by
an effective mechanism to integrate their work.
. There is, for the most part, a failure to relate development
assistance policies to policies concerned with trade and
monetary problems.
. And, finally, the system does not project sufficient unity
of purpose and of approach to make it a rallying point for
public support in the industrialized countries.
I think all of us would recognize, Mr. President, that there is merit
in this analysis.
The Commission recommended that ihe President of the World Bank call
an international conference on this mat,ter this year. But clearly it
would be inappropriate for the Bank to do so, for within the United
Nations system it is this body -- ECOSOC itself -- which has the prime
responsibility for dealing with this problem. You will be giving, I know,
prolonged and serious attention to this matter in connection with the
Second Deve'opment Decade, and we in the Bank will play our full role in
whatever procedures you may establish to carry out the principles for
review anzd appraisal as set forth in Part D of the General Assembly
Resolution on a "Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade.'


-8-
Meanwhile, I believe that the World Bank, consistent with its aims
and purposes, can contribute substantially toward making the inter-
national development effort more rational and cohesive. There are
three principal lines of action, which we propose to follow, to which
I would like to refer:
1. We propose to establish working relationships with other inter-
national agencies that will L ke our common efforts in the development
field complementary rather than overlapping. We have been working
away at this without much fanfare and are beginning to build a pattern
of interagency cooperation which I believe is impressive, although I
suspect it is not widely known outside the institutions concerned. We
are establishing a series of cooperative understandings with our sister
agencies under which we will work together toward a more efficient
division of labor that will both economize scarce resources of profes-
sional talent and will provide our member countries with more coherent
and effective development assistance.
Our closest relationships, of course, are with the International
Monetary Fund. In February of this year the Managing Director of the
Fund and I signed a joint memorandum stating our intetion "for the Fund
and the Bank to complement each other as they work to achieve their
common objective, for each to make the fullest possible use of the
expertise and information of the other, to reduce to a minimum the risk
of inconsistent policy advice, and to minimize the duplication of requests
for information to member governments.' The staffs of both institutions
have been given firm and precise instructions to insure that these aims
are achieved. It would take far too much of the Council's time if I were
to mention in detail all the forms of Bank/Fund cooperation now in effect.
I would, however, like to mention particularly our efforts to coordinate
the scheduling of country missions of the two institutions, and, through
more exchange of data, to reduce the number of separate requests made to
governments for economic and financial information.
Next only to the IMF, our closeat institutional relationships are
with the UNDP. It should be obvious why this is so.    Since the establish-
ment of the Special Fund, a principal function of the UNDP has been the
financing of preinvestment studies. The principal function of the
World Bank Group is the financing of investment projects. Preinvestment
and investment are, of course, two stages of a single economic process.
UNDP feasibility studies, for example, even when their findings are
favorable, are fully useful only if the projects studies can ultimately
be financed  and, conversely, investment projects proposed to the Bank can
be properly appraised and funded only if satisfactory feasibility studies
of these projects have previously been made.
Both the UNDP and the World Bank Group have been going through a
period of rapid expansion of their activities in the developing world.
During this period, the Administrator and I have maintained the closest
relationship and, building on experience, the two institutions have
worked out a division of labor designed to 'make them complementary in
F ~as well as in concept. The Bank considers the UNDP to be the primary


- 9 -
organ of the U.N. family for the financing of preinvestment studies.
Consequently, the Bank looks to the UNDP to finance this kind of activity
and will do so itself only in those rare instances when the UNDP is for
some reason unable to meet a priority need.
On the other hand, when requested to do so by a member government,
the Bank acts as Executing Agency for UNDP preinvestment projects. More-
over, at the request of the UNDP, our technical staff reviews all preinvesL-
ment projects being seriously considered by the UNDP for financing. In
this way we have been able to help UNDP and its other Executing Agencies
to formulate preinvestment projects so that the results of the studies
will provide a sound basis for future investment -- even though it may not
necessarily be future investment by the World Bank Group. More recently,
we have begun, with the cooperation of the UNDP, to assist governments in
the preparation of programs of preinvestment studies needed to prepare th!
ground for major investments in future years. Participation by the UNDP
Resident Representatives in Bank missions dealing with requirements for
preinvestm.ent studies is becoming an important feature of our field
operations, and the reports of such missions, in turn, are available to
the UNDP for use in discharging its own responsibility for programming the
U.N. system's inputs of technical assistance into each country.
With the U.N. Secretariat itself, we are developing close day-to-da,,
working relationships dealing with a wide range of matters of mutual concern.
including economic planning, population, housing and urbanization. Throug".
an established Liaison ComaLittee, we are attempting not only to avoid
duplication but also to mesh our activities so as to make them mutually
reinforcing.        --
With respect to the sectoral agencies within the U.N. system, the
Bank, as you know, has formal agreements with FAO and Unesco under which
special units in those two agencies provide expert assistance in the
identification and preparation of projects for Bank Group financing. Thes-1
agencies also give frequent staff support for Bank economic missions con-
cerned with the education and agricultural sectors. The number of profes-
sional posts provided for staff engaged in this work in FAO has grown
from 12, at the beginning of the joint program in May 1964, to 70, in
Unesco, during those same six years, the number has increased from 12 to
29. The Governors of the Bank and IDA recently approved an expansion of
our cooperative arrangements with Unesco, including the establishment of
several new professiorLal posts to provide technical support in the fields 'r
educational planning and sector studies.   These two agreements are the raor
visible evidence of the Bank's determination to rely on expert services
available elsewhere in the U.N. system, rather than attempting to meet all
requirements by duplicating such expertise on its own staff. But they m
not the only evidence.
We have recently begun discussions with WHO, looking toward a similar
agre4mnt. Under ad hoc arrangements, WHO experts have been assisting us
in the preparation of water supply and sewerage projects.    Both WHO and
we believe that _xpanded activities in this area now warrant a more fory:wl
cooperative agreement. In addition, WHO and the Bank have been cooperaLinv,


10-
closely, on a case-by-case basis, in connection with population problems.
We are also increasing our contacts with ILO, and each of us has provided
staff help to the other in connection with country missions. Experts
from UNIDO have participated in several Bank missions recently, and I
expect that our growing involvement in industrial financing will lead
to further cooperative ventures with UNIDO. Indeed, it is my intention
that, wherever we can identify a resource of professional expertise
in the U.N. system whic'-, cam be drawn upon in support of our lending
program, the Bank should approach the agency in question and request its
assistance. I am happy to say that our desire to bring about a better
meshing of the technical operations of the Bank and other parts of the
U.N. system has been enthusiastically reciprocated by the Directors-General
and the responsible governing bodies of the other specialized agencies.
The three major regional development banks, the Inter-American
Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the African Development
Bank, are at different stages in the growth of their own activities and
the operational relationships between them and the World Bank Group differ
accordingly. However, we have frequent contacts with all three of these
institutions. While in the nature of things there can be no clear line
of demarcation between the kinds of projects financed by the regional
banks and those financed by the World Bank Group, our consultations and
exchanges of information are designed to enable us to avoid overlapping
or undesirable competition, and to assist in the formation of a more
consistent policy approach to our common members. In the case of the Latin
American countries in particular, the World Bank Group, the Inter-American
Development Bank, and the Inter-American Committee on the Alliance for
Progress (CIAP) are presently engaged in an ambitious but, I believe,
feasible endeavor to establish a fully coordinated schedule of country
missions and country program reviews, involving an extensive interchange
of staff and documentation. We have also established informal but effective
working relations with other regional organizations such as the European
Investment Bank and the European Development Fund, the latter being a parti-
cularly important source of concessional finance for many of our member
countries in Africa.
Finally, in this connection, I want to mention the Development Assistance
Committee of the OECD which, although not a U.N. organization, is playing
an increasingly important role in coordination of the development assistance
policies of the major capital-exporting countries. The Bank maintains very
close contact with the work of the DAC. One aspect of this work to which
I attach particular importance at present is the effort of the DAC to work
out a general agreement among donor countries for the untying of official
development loans. The Bank is actively supporting this endeavor.
It is not a simple matter, Mr. President, for large autonomous inter
national organizations to work out and implement cooperative arrangements
of the kind which I have described. There are many inherent difficulties
and roadblocks, but I am convinced that our efforts in this direction are
not only necessary in principle but are proving eminently worthwhile in
practice.


- 11 -
2. A second way in which the Bank Group is seeking to contribute
to rationalization of the international development effort is through
its expanded program of country economic missions, to which I referred
briefly in my statement to the Council last year. The basic pprpose
of this program, in addition to meeting our own operational require-
ments, is to produce current, comprehensive and objective data and
analyses concerning each of our developing member countries. The program
is designed, on the one hand, to astist the government of the country in
planning and implementing its own national development strategy, and, on
the other, to help interested multilateral and bilateral aid agencies to
tailor their assistance to the requirements of that strategy.
As this new program gains momentum, we plan to schedule regular
annual reports on approximately 30 countries -- countries containing
more than 80% of the population of the developing member countries --
and biennial or triennial reports on the remaining 60 countries.
Let me sketch for you specifically what these ec,nomic missions, and
their reports, will deal with:
a.  An evaluation of the situation and prospects of the economy.
b. An analysis of the country's development objectives and of
the major obstacles in the way of achieving them.
c. An assessment of domestic and external financing requirements
and of the possibilities of meeting them.
d. An analysis of the principal preinvestment surveys and studies
required to carry out the development program and of the
relative priorities of those requirements.
e. An appraisal of the available machinery for planning and for
the formulation of economic and financial policy.
f. An analysis of the problems of investment and resource
mobilization and allocation, of external debt prospects, of
appropriate borrowing terms, and of creditworthiness.
g. An evaluation of the country's population problem and program.
h. And an appraisal of the "quality" as well as the "quantity" of
economic development, including analyses of income distribution,
nutrition, literacy levels, life expectancy, and trends in
unemployment.
These economic missions will not be staffed by World Bank Group
personnel alone. At my request, the Administrator of the UNDP has
promised to associate his Resident Representatives with the work of these
missions, and they will play a leading role in the areas of technical
assistance and preinvestment. The other U.N. specialized agencies are


- 12 -
also cooperating. In the first half of 1970 alone, for example, experts
from FAO, ILO, Unesco, UNIDO and WHO participated in more than a dozen
Eank missions. And this collaboration will grow even greater.
After the reports of these missions have been reviewed by, and
discussed with, the collaborating agencies and the governments concerned,
they will be submitted to our Executive Directors and then made available
to the U.N., to the UNDP, to other concerned agencies in the U.N. system,
to the appropri"_,e Re, cmic Comissions and the Regional Develop-
ment Banks, and to bilateral donors.
As I have already indicated, our expectation is that the end result
of this effort will be to facilitate the adoption of realistic develop-
ment strategies by our developing member countries, which can then serve
as the basis for effective operational coordination of aid from all the
various sources of development assistance.
3. That brings me to the third of our activities designed to contri-
bute to a more coherent international development endeavor -- namely,
the organization of aid coordination groups providing for regular consul-
tations between each major developing country and the various develop-
ment assistance agencies interested in helping it. It is through the
mechanism of such consultation that a country's program and policies
can be reviewed, and a common understanding can be reached on the financial
and technical assistance requirements of a satisfactory development
effort.
There are, at present, some 14 formal aid coordination groups
organized to hold consultations of this kind. The Bank acts as chair-
man of 12 of these groups; it participates actively in the others; and
it plays an active supporting role in the somewhat similar consultations
on the Latin American countries organized by CIAP. Because of the impor-
tance of preinvestment, the UNDP participates regularly in the meetings
of the groups, and, when sectoral problems are discussed in depth, the
relevant specialized agency is invited as well.
But more needs to be done in this field. New groups should be
formed where the need exists. To this end, in consultation with the
governments concerned, the Bank is currently organizing new groups for
the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and the Philippines, and is reactivating
the groups for Thailand and Nigeria.
Further, we need to assure that existing groups meet more regularly.
And finally, local coordinating mechanisms at the country level
need to be established -- or, in some cases where they already exist,
need to be strengthened -- preferably under the chairmanship of the host
government, for the purpose of coordinating the specific details of project
financing and technical assistance. We in the Bank intend to encourage
the creation or strengthening of such local coordinating bodies where tlie,
are needed. And, where appropriate, we will be happy to provide such
staff services as may be requested by the local coordinating bodies.


-13-
One may well ask, Nr. President, what is likely to be the result
of all this collaboration, which is admittedly time-consuming and often
difficult. As I see it, we can reasonably expect results of four
different kinds:
1. Everyone working in the development field will have up-to-date
socio-economic information and analyses of the problem of
the developing countries.
2. It will become possible to look at all of the interrelated
aspects of development together rather than one at a time.
Governments should thus be able to make more rational
decisions on priorities and the international community
should be in a better position to help governments by illumi-
natIng the choices open to them.
3. It will become easier to avoid inconsistent approaches by
different aid agencies.
4. It should become possible to curb an inordinate growth in
the number of separate missions with which governments have
to deal as the international development effort expands.
I am far from suggesting, Mr. President, that we are on the way to
a neat, tidy system of international development assistance. In a
dynamic world, with a multiplicity of governments and international
institutions, it would be unrealistic to think that any such simple, tidy
package can be put together. But I do think that adoption of the strategy
for the Second Development Decade -- in spite of all the reservations --
is a most encouraging first step. And I do believe that the U.N. agencies
are beginning to lay the basis for a much more cohesive and coherent
international development effort than we have had in the past; one in
which the entire development community can work more effectively toward
the implementation of a rational and realistic development strategy for
each developing country. If we succeed in that objective, it should
contribute immeasurably to the success of the Second Development Decade.
END