One of SOE’s goals is to enhance the Bank’s visibility in Europe and to increase the awareness on Latin American current issues, problems, and potentialities: the more the public opinion’s attention is devoted to Latin America and the Caribbean, the easier it is to keep governments and the business community interested in the region’s prospects.

To achieve this objective, SOE routinely organizes different kinds of public activities. Among them are seminars held in various IDB member countries in cooperation with major European counterparts, such as universities, think tanks, governments, international institutions and news organizations. In addition to funding and publishing reports and books on specific issues, SOE presents and disseminates books and studies edited by the Bank that meet the interests of European academics, political leaders, economists, journalists, the business community and civil society.

EUROPE-LATIN AMERICAN FORUMS
Since 2003, the annual Europe-Latin American Forum held in Paris is a major gathering of scholars, experts and policy-makers, a premiere event for European specialists, co-organized by SOE, the journal Problèmes d’Amérique Latine, the Institut Choiseul and the French Foreign Ministry.

In 2006, a Forum was also held for the first time in London at Chatham House, organized in conjunction with the Institute for the Study of the Americas of the University of London and the Department For International Development (DFID).