The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has been relaunched with a new strategy aimed at maximizing its impact on the Latin American and Caribbean region.
With a new approach to boosting development through the public and private sectors, the Governors Assemblies approved three transformations to achieve that goal, at their weekend meeting in Punta Cana.
The new Institutional Strategy for the 2024-2030 period includes the application of a results-based programmatic approach, improvements in lending instruments and measurement metrics, greater investment in its knowledge capacity, and the creation of a culture of impact and meritocracy throughout the bank.
Three fundamental objectives:
Reduce poverty and inequality
Tackle climate change
Boost sustainable regional growth
To do so, the IDB Group will work in several areas: biodiversity, natural capital and climate action, gender equality and inclusion of diverse population groups and institutional capacity, rule of law and citizen security, as well as social protection and development of human capital, productive development, and innovation through the rivate sector, sustainable, resilient and inclusive infrastructure, and regional integration.
Goal Achievements
To meet these goals, the IDB Group will strengthen its financial capacity with a capitalization of US$ 3.5 billion, which will allow IDB Invest to expand its capacity to channel resources to the region from the current US$ 8 billion annually to around US$ 19,000 million.
The IDB expects that the reforms, along with efforts by each institution to optimize their balance sheets, will increase their financing capacity up to US$ 112 billion over the next 10 years.
The Dominican Republic assumed the pro tempore presidency of the Governors Assemblies. Finance Minister, Jose Manuel-Jochi-Vicente, explained how this step will see the country lead the conversations on strategies until the next meeting to be held in Chile in 2025.
Latin America stabilizes
A report published by the IDB revealed that the economy of Latin American countries grew above expectations in 2023, already overcoming the ravages left by the covid-19 pandemic. The region experienced a 2.1% economic growth compared to the previous year, a figure that doubled the bank’s own forecasts.
In an interview with EFE, IDB chief economist, Eric Parrado said “We had a soft-landing following 2 years of turbulence and are now ready take off.”
The report details that the fiscal policies aimed at dealing with the effects of the pandemic that the countries in the region put in place, together with a generalized growth of the global economy, gave the necessary push for the recovery that is currently being experienced.
The IDB also highlighted the “timely” reaction of the region’s central banks to confront inflation, which it believes paved the way for last year’s figures to exceed expectations. “The central banks of the region reacted in a timely manner, long before developed countries did,” said Parrado.
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