Inter-American Development Bank, General Assembly, 3-5 April, 2006
What is the IBD?A long awaited initiative by Latin-American countries, the IBD was created in 1959 with the mission “of contributing to speed the process of economic, social, personal and collective development of the member states in the developing region”. At the present time, the IBD is the largest regional development bank and the main multilateral source of funding for economic, social and institutional development projects, as well as trade and regional integration projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. For almost ten years, the IBD has been funding crime prevention programmes for Latin-American countries, which makes it a pioneer bank in this area. More information on IBD. It should also be noted that a report of the IBD on violence prevention, entitled “Emphasizing Prevention in Citizen Security”, is accessible by clicking on the following link. During the opening session, the new President of the IBD, Mr Luis Alberto Moreno of Colombia, pledged that he will take steps to make the Bank more agile and decentralized. " (…) In the first place I want to promote a Bank that is closer to its clients, the people of Latin America, and I will foster its decentralization.” (…) “Secondly, we will make the Bank more agile, reducing the time lapse between the approval and the disbursement of loans.”
Responding to calls made by the Governors from various countries in their opening speeches, Mr. Moreno reaffirmed his will to support programmes to fight poverty and work more closely with national and local governments “who are increasingly taking responsibility for social services such as education and health”. In this respect, he announced an initiative to be launched at a conference in Washington on June 11-13, “to expand benefits of development to the great majority of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean”.
Highlights of this meeting included the speeches of Bolivian President, Evo Morales, and Honduran President, Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales.
Referring to “500 years of plundering” of the natural resources of his country, Mr. Morales indicated that the indigenous populations of Bolivia, “seek not revenge but justice”, and must be able from now on to benefit from these resources in order to avoid serious social conflicts.
Similarly, recalling that 67% of Bolivians live in dire poverty, ¾ of them with less than 1 dollar per day, he invited the private sector to play an important role in poverty reduction. He stated: “(…) The private sector should be our partner, not the owner of our resources. Only then will we be able to work together. (…) We must end social exclusion and marginalization (…) ”.
The President of Honduras shared his concern and also called for debt relief for his country and for other nations in Latin America including Bolivia, and reaffirmed that “democracy cannot be built when our people are facing extremely high levels of malnutrition and hunger”.
Since its creation in 1994, the ICPC has established close links with some countries in Latin America. In its most recent annual Colloquium, organized in Chile in October 2005, it underlined the importance of reinforcing these links and broadening the network to include other countries of the continent. Over the years, representatives of various countries, cities and other institutions have addressed numerous invitations to ICPC for cooperation. It is in this context that Ms Sagant, ICPC's Director General, participated in the Annual Meeting of the Inter American Development Bank.
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