Barend de Vries (1925-2010)
Bob started his career in the International Monetary Fund where he met Margaret. They fell in love, and, to be able to marry, Bob obtained a transfer to the Bank. Their marriage was a great love story, two first rate economists supporting each other. When I learned they were both sick I visited them and later Bob when he was left alone. I strongly believe that Bob and Margaret are now reunited and perfectly happy.
I met Bob in July 1961 when I was interviewed by the Word Bank and in September when I started working for the Western Hemisphere Department. Bob was Chief of the Columbia, Equator and Brazil division, but the Bank was not lending to Brazil at that time and I started working on Columbia development.
Under Bob’s leadership, the Bank’s relationships with Columbia were extremely active. In the early 50’s a 6 months 5-8 men Bank mission had helped set up the Planning Ministry, and since, more than 10 loans had been made for roads, railroads and power stations. One or two economic missions each year played an important role in the development of the Plan and helped in the overall direction of the economy.
Bob was an outstanding economist, interested primarily in helping develop an economy at the service of all the population. His preoccupation with the poor was already very clear. His managerial style was remarkable. For each specific borrower, he gave me a clear introduction and put me in charge. A few weeks later, he repeated the same delegation for another borrower. He would keep fully informed and responded to my questions but he left me a great autonomy and, within a few months, I was administering all the loans to Columbia. HeeHeH used the same management style for the preparation of future loans. Within less than a year, Bob concentrated on the economic work and left me effectively in charge of the lending program for Columbia. For a young man who had never known anything about developing countries this was absolutely marvelous and Bob was my greatest friend.
While I worked on the lending side of the Colombian operations, Bob started developing the proposals for a “Consultative Group”. The Bank had set up such a group for India to coordinate the relationships between the country and all its donors. Bob felt that Columbia deserved and would make good use of such a group. However the Bank Management was afraid that Consultative Groups for middle size countries would require too much additional staff. Bob was not discouraged and, after much work, he eventually got permission for a first meeting of the group without any additional staff.
The work load became quite heavy and I was unhappy because of the unavoidable delays in the preparation of loans. Bob answer was astonishing: “I am not a good manager”. He was wrong, by making me fully responsible for the lending program he could devote his full time to the creation of the Consultative Group despite many difficulties and opposition. Together we were able to meet the dead lines for all the loans and the consultative group meeting.
Bob was very concerned by the apartheid practiced in South Africa that was endorsed and even promoted by an offshoot of the Dutch Reformed Church. Bob had been born and educated in that Church in the Netherlands, and could not accept that his own Church had deviated so much from Christ message. We were often discussing this and he was very active in the efforts to change his Church position.
Bob achievements as economist were widely recognized and he was soon promoted to the post of Chief Economist of the Western Hemisphere Department. I then lost the best boss I ever had, but my new boss let me direct the lending program to Columbia with little interference.
Two years later, the Bank decided to create in Abidjan Ivory Coast, a permanent mission to help identify and develop projects that could be financed by the Bank or IDA. I was named Deputy Chief of that mission because of the experience Bob had helped me to acquire on projects.
When I came back to Washington, I was named Division Chief for North Africa. I had no further opportunity to work for Bob, but we kept in touch. At my request, he advised me on how to propose and implement Consultative Croups for Tunisia and Morocco and later, how to represent the Bank in the OECD Consultative Group for Turkey.
Later Bob was named Director of Creditworthiness Assessment for the whole Bank, the key position to determine the Bank maximum lending for any country. After retirement, Bob wrote “Champions of the Poor”, a major book that reflects so well his commitment to the development efforts that must be conceived, implemented and guided by the Judeo-Christian Values. In that book he made explicit his preoccupations with the poor that I had already seen in my work with him in the early 1960’s. Bob was one of the best economists and one of the best Christians. He has contributed significantly to the world human development.
Testimonial by Rene Springuel
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