Short answers, pulled from the story.
The World Bank Group came into formal existence on the 27th of December 1946 following the ratification of the Bretton Woods agreements by participating nations. Delegates from forty-four nations gathered at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, on the 1st of July 1944 to establish the institution. The United States and the United Kingdom dominated the negotiations led by Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes.
Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes designed the World Bank Group to provide temporary loans to low-income countries that could not access commercial credit. The institution began its existence as a mechanism to rebuild Europe after the devastation of World War II rather than as a poverty-fighting charity. The United States and the United Kingdom dominated the negotiations to establish a new global financial order.
The World Bank Group is headquartered in Washington, D.C. Treasury Secretary Fred M. Vinson unilaterally moved the headquarters from New York to Washington, D.C. arguing that placing them in New York would subject them to the taint of international finance in American public opinion. The agreement initially implied that both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would be headquartered in the United States.
The World Bank implemented structural adjustment policies in the 1980s that included deregulation, market liberalization, and the privatization of state-owned enterprises. These policies collectively known as the Washington Consensus were designed to streamline national economies. UNICEF reported in the late 1980s that these programs were responsible for reduced health, nutritional, and educational levels for tens of millions of children in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
The World Bank Group is owned by 189 member governments but voting power is based on economic size and financial contributions. The United States holds 15.85 percent of the voting power giving it the ability to block any major change in the bank's governing structure since changes require an 85 percent supermajority. In 2010 voting powers were revised to increase the voice of developing countries notably China but the dominance of wealthy nations remains a central point of contention.
The World Bank Group has faced allegations of investing in projects with human rights issues such as loans to the palm oil company Dinant after the 2009 Honduran coup d'état. Between 2018 and 2024 activists say the bank invested $650 million in greenhouse gas intensive industrial animal agriculture operations despite promising to align its investments with the 2015 Paris Agreement. In 2025 the bank faced criticism from environmental and animal welfare activists for continuing to finance these operations.