2.2  Administrative history   In August 1963 the World Bank established an office in Bogota, Colombia, the first World Bank office established in Latin America.  Colombia was an early recipient of Bank assistance, with a loan of five million dollars in mid-1949, and during the next twenty years the Bank made at least one loan to Colombia every year except for 1957 and 1968.  Colombia was also the first country to have its economy studied by a Bank-sponsored general survey mission.  In 1963 the Bank initiated a Consultative Group on Colombia to provide a forum for the coordination of development assistance programs and policies; a dozen donor countries and several international agencies participated.  The Bogota office was closed in 1966 but reopened in 1969.

2.4  Source   Transferred from the Colombia Country Office

3.1 Scope and content   The series consists of files on visits to Colombia by various senior World Bank officials, including President Barber Conable.  The files may include agendas,  correspondence setting up meetings with the Government for the visitor, briefing materials, short resumes of the careers of persons the visitor was scheduled to meet, back-to-the-office reports on the events of the visit, reports of discussions, and post-visit thank you letters.  The substantive records in this series are duplicated in the Bank headquarters records of the Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office and the records of the Colombia unit.  This series, however, demonstrates the repeated concerns of Headquarters officials for the program in Colombia, and the briefing materials found in some of the files provide a useful snapshot of the concerns of the Bank at the time of the visit.

3.3  Accruals   Accruals are expected

3.4 Arrangement   Arranged in one series, and thereunder chonological by date of visit:
Country program management and aid coordination – Country team meetings

4.1 Conditions of access   Records are subject to the World Bank Policy on the Disclosure of Information

4.2 Conditions of reproduction   Records are subject to the World Bank Policy on Copyright

4.3 Language/scripts   English, Spanish

5.3  Related units of description  WB IBRD/IDA 01, Country Operational Files, 1946-1998, Colombia; WB IBRD/IDA 09, Records of the Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office

7.2 Rules or conventions  Internal World Bank Group Archives rules
7.3 Date(s) of descriptions  2004-06-04