The World Bank is one of the two Bretton Woods Institutions which were created in 1944 to rebuild a war-torn Europe after World War II. Later, largely due to the contributions of the Marshall Plan,

Some critics of the World Bank believe that the institution was not started in order to reduce poverty but rather to support United States' business interests, and argue that the bank has actually increased poverty and been detrimental to the environment, public health, and cultural diversity.[4] Some critics also claim that the World Bank has consistently pushed a "neo-liberal" agenda, imposing policies on developing countries which have been damaging, destructive and anti-developmental.A number of intellectuals in developing countries have argued that the World Bank is deeply implicated in contemporary modes of donor and NGO driven imperialism and that its intellectual output functions to blame the poor for their condition.

It has also been suggested that the World Bank is an instrument for the promotion of US and 'Western' interests in certain regions of the world. Consequently, seven South American nations have established the Bank of the South in order to minimize US influence in the region

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank

The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world's major industrial states. The Bretton Woods system was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent nation-states.

Preparing to rebuild the international economic system as World War II was still raging, 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations gathered at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. The delegates deliberated upon and signed the Bretton Woods Agreements during the first three weeks of July 1944.

Setting up a system of rules, institutions, and procedures to regulate the international monetary system, the planners at Bretton Woods established the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) (now one of five institutions in the World Bank Group) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). These organizations became operational in 1946 after a sufficient number of countries had ratified the agreement.
Wartime devastation of Europe and East Asia

Furthermore, U.S. allies—economically exhausted by the war—accepted this leadership. They needed U.S. assistance to rebuild their domestic production and to finance their international trade; indeed, they needed it to survive.

Before the war, the French and the British were realizing that they could no longer compete with U.S. industry in an open marketplace. During the 1930s, the British had created their own economic bloc to shut out U.S. goods. Churchill did not believe that he could surrender that protection after the war, so he watered down the Atlantic Charter's "free access" clause before agreeing to it.

Yet, the U.S. officials were determined to open their access to the British empire. The combined value of British and U.S. trade was well over half of all the world's trade in goods. In order for the US to open global markets, it first had to split the British (trade) empire. Whilst Britain had economically dominated the 19th century, they intended the second half of the 20th to be under U.S. hegemony.[citation needed]

A devastated Britain had little choice. Two world wars had destroyed the country's principal industries that paid for the importation of half the nation's food and nearly all its raw materials except coal. The British had no choice but to ask for aid. In 1945, the U.S. agreed to a loan of $3.8 billion. In return, British officials promised to negotiate the agreement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

IMF/World Bank support of military dictatorships

The role of the Bretton Woods institutions has been controversial to some since the late Cold War period. Critics claim that IMF policy makers deliberately supported military dictatorships friendly to American and European corporations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund