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Article: Bretton Woods and the UN system. (relationship of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to the UN)
- Article from:
- The Ecumenical Review
- Article date:
- July 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 World Council of Churches. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Bretton Woods institutions - the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank - derive their name from the small village in the northeastern US state of New Hampshire, near the Canadian border, where the conference establishing them was held in 1944.
At that time the United Nations organization did not yet exist, although its foundation had already been foreshadowed well before 1944. Thus, when the IMF and World Bank were established, their relationship to the still-nonexistent UN organization was naturally left open and vague, even though the terms of reference of both the IMF and World Bank indicated that there would be some relationship. In the event, ...