The most comprehensive instrument for giving developmental advice to member countries, however, is the general survey mission. The first of these missions was organized in 1949, in response to a request from the Government of Colombia for a thorough analysis of the Colombian economy and for recommendations on which the Government could base the formulation of a long-term program for economic development. Even in its early stages, this experiment promised sufficient results to encourage its repetition. A separate department (the Office of Technical Assistance) was accordingly established and given continuing responsibilities for this kind of activity.
In all, the Bank has now organized 14 general survey missions to its member countries. While the terms of reference have varied according to the needs of the receiving country, the emphasis consistently has been on three points. The first is to estimate in a rough order of magnitude the amount of investment that a country can undertake with the resources at its disposal. The second is to recommend priorities for public investment among the important sectors of the economy and among types of undertaking in each sector, after taking into account estimated private investment requirements. The third is to suggest economic and financial policies and administrative measures necessary to support the development program.
The Bank has engaged in a number of other undertakings analogous to these missions and in some cases deriving their inspiration from them. In 1951 and 1952, for instance, economists of the staff collaborated with Mexican economists in an analysis of long-term trends in the Mexican economy and what those trends implied for the economy's ability to absorb additional foreign investment. More specialized studies have been undertaken elsewhere, of agricultural development in Uruguay (1951), Chile (1952) and Colombia (1955), and of regional development in Colombia (1955).
The general survey mission has also been the forerunner of other forms of developmental assistance. Beginning in 1951, the Bank stationed two staff members in Nicaragua to work with the Government not only in drawing up a development program but in actually putting it into effect. At the request of the Government, the Bank has maintained a resident representative in Nicaragua ever since, to give further assistance in the programming and execution of measures for economic development; and resident representatives are now serving in Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama as well. A further and logical outcome of the Bank's interest in the formulation of development policies is the decision to begin operation next year of an Economic Development Institute as a staff college for senior officials of member countries.
In not a few cases, the Bank's assistance has fallen short of achieving its objectives. But in many others, it has had its influence on public policies; it has given new and stronger impetus to development efforts; it has improved the economic machinery of member countries; and it has done something to establish new and useful habits of thinking about economic development. Whether these contributions will prove to have been crucial or permanent, it is too early to say. What can be said is that both the
usefulness and the objectivity of the Bank's assistance are now generally recognized. The demands for assistance have steadily grown, and show no signs of abating.
The Tenth Year Begins The Bank was born in a time of trouble; it starts its tenth year in a time of rising hope. But from the first, it has had the good fortune to be working in an age when economic progress has been of concern to more individuals, more organizations, more countries than ever before. Development efforts have been manifold; they have tended, on the whole, to reinforce each other.
There has been no lack of opportunity, in the postwar decade, to learn and relearn from experience. Economic progress, not for the first time in history, has proved to grow out of a state of mind: out of the knowledge of people that a better life is, in fact, attainable; and out of a determination of the people to win it by their own work. And the work goes better when there is economic and political stability—when the worker in farm and factory, the business man, the investor and the public servant can have confidence in the value of money, and when they know that changes of government, if they occur, will not interrupt the essential continuity of national effort.
Technology, by itself, has proved inadequate, and those who thought they could progress merely by importing machinery have often been frustrated. Machines demand changes of habit and organization, and when these do not occur, technology is wasted. Machinery without maintenance, production without marketing, industry without skilled management, are costly. Experience has shown again and again that monumental projects are not necessarily useful projects. But the unspectacular—the care of equipment, the teaching of skills, the careful nurturing of land—is often of inestimable value.
In sum, it has been shown that economic development requires more than machines, more than money. It does not only require the building of great power plants and ports and roads. It has to be an awakening in the minds of millions of people, in all walks and conditions of life—an awakening that will move people to work more effectively for tomorrow's rewards.
The trials and the errors of the decade were countless, and some of them were costly. But they produced great results. Ten years after the war, many countries have gained a momentum that is likely to go on increasing. Throughout most of the world, in the race between population and production, production is drawing ahead; living standards are on the rise.
The Bank itself has been one of the many participants in the development effort of the decade. It has affected, and been affected by, that effort; it has been driven, and has driven itself, to a variety of activity not imagined by it founders. As an international organization, it is privileged to have an unusually wide opportunity to gain experience in the world; it also has the opportunity to apply that experience in a practical and effective way to the problems of a world membership. The Bank starts its tenth year with a sense of much learned and much done, but with a full realization that there is much more yet to learn and much more yet to do.