I was answering a question on WebAnswers — a site where you can earn money answering questions — when I found out that the Philippines was sikat pala in the 1940s. Imagine, the Philippines was one of only five Asian countries that were represented when the World Bank was established in a series of conferences from July 1-22, 1944 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.
That time, the World Bank was called International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), and its goal was to help countries recover from World War II and pursue economic development.
The 44 countries represented when the World Bank was created were:
- Australia
- Belgium
- Bolivia
- Brazil
- Canada
- Chile
- China *
- Colombia
- Costa Rica
- Cuba
- Czechoslovakia
- Dominican Republic
- Ecuador
- Egypt
- El Salvador
- Ethiopia
- France
- Greece
- Guatemala
- Haiti
- Honduras
- Iceland
- India *
- Iran *
- Iraq *
- Liberia
- Luxembourg
- Mexico
- The Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Nicaragua
- Norway
- Panama
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Philippines *
- Poland
- South Africa
- USSR
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Uruguay
- Venezuela
- Yugoslavia
*Asian countries
The richer Asian countries now such as South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand were not present then. Japan was understandably not present, as it was a World War II enemy of the Allied countries.