In the late 1940s Business as Usual was, well, somewhat disrupted by World events.
That being said, the risk of ongoing global destabilization presented the opportunity to recalibrate the rules for free trade.
The idea to create an efficient foreign exchange system, preventing competitive devaluations of currencies, and promoting international economic growth resulted in the initiation of the Bretton Woods System which, as projects go, was a fairly unique endeavor.
Two primary stakeholders, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Cordell Hull, respectively President and Secretary of State in the U.S. were initial sponsors of the project. Proponents of "Wilsonianism" Roosevelt and Hull believed in free trade promoting prosperity and peace, where currency devaluations, tariffs and trading blocs contribute to instability, as witnessed post World War One and during the Great Depression era.
The first articulation of the vision for economic cooperation, "The Atlantic Charter", was co-drafted several years earlier, in 1941, by Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Drafted on-board Naval vessels it was considered by some historians to be the first step towards founding the United Nations; one of the major provisions of the Atlantic Charter declared as follows:
". . . [A]fter the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, [we] hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want. . . . [S]uch a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance."
By 1942, Harry Dexter White, Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, and John Maynard Keynes, advisor to the British Treasury, had joined the stakeholder register, as designers of a system that had commonality in fixed exchange rates.
Keynes favored a global central bank and a new currency; White preferred a lending fund with a greater role for the U.S. dollar. The differences in philosophies extended the planning phase of this project for 2 more years.
The scope of the project was finally settled in July 1944, at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. By this time, the stakeholders were represented by 730 delegates from 44 nations including the U.S., the U.K., Brazil, Russia, Chile, Mexico, Belgium, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Canada, China and India.
The unique nature of this project needed a further 14 years for the Bretton Wood's system to become fully functional.
"Once implemented, its provisions called for the U.S. dollar to be pegged to the value of gold. Moreover, all other currencies in the system were then pegged to the U.S. dollar’s value. The exchange rate applied at the time set the price of gold at $35 an ounce. . . The system itself was temporary and collapsed after 30 years."
The successes of the Bretton Woods System are multiple. Not least of all, 44 countries agreed to peg their currencies to the value of the U.S. dollar, to help regulate and promote international trade. These countries minimized exchange rate volatility by buying U.S. dollars, with their own currencies, as needed, which led to loans and grants being available from the World Bank.
Ironically, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund - two organizations formed because of the Bretton Woods Agreement - have outlasted the original system. You can read more on both of these institutions here.
The unique and temporary nature of the Bretton Woods system has rippled across 80 years of macro-economics and contributed in no small way to economic development and global stability.
The history of project management is rich, and it is fair to say that project management skills and competencies are enduring.
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