Abstract
This paper discusses the appointment of Jacques de Larosière as Managing Director in the IMF. He assumed his duties at the IMF on June 17, 1978, succeeding Mr. H. Johannes Witteveen, of the Netherlands, whose service ended on June 16, 1978. Mr. de Larosière, 48, was Director of the French Treasury since 1974. He represented his government at many international conferences as well as on the boards of major industrial and financial concerns. Mr. de Larosière also participated in the work of the Committee of Twenty on International Monetary Reform and the Interim Committee.
Mr. Robert S. McNamara, President of the World Bank, spoke of “absolute poverty” during his address to the Annual Meetings of the Bank and the Fund in Nairobi in 1973, as “a condition of life so degraded by disease, illiteracy, malnutrition, and squalor as to deny its victims basic human necessities.” Absolute poverty, he said, was the lot of 40 per cent of the peoples of the developing countries. There was a marked shift in emphasis in the Bank’s development policies following Mr. McNamara’s speech at Nairobi. This series of articles explains how the Bank is meeting the challenge of poverty in its member countries.