July 22, 2002

IDB ORGANIZES INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON ETHICS AND DEVELOPMENT SEPTEMBER 5-6 IN ARGENTINA

Distinguished personalities to address event supported by IDB, University of Buenos Aires, CAF, and French and Norwegian governments

The Inter-American Development Bank will hold an international congress on “The Challenge of Ethics in Development” in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sept. 5-6.

The conference, to be held in the Faculty of Economic Science at the University of Buenos Aires, was convoked by the IDB’s Inter-American Initiative on Social Capital, Ethics and Development and the University of Buenos Aires.

Among those participating will be distinguished intellectuals and academics, political and business leaders, representatives of the business community and civil society and experts from prominent economics and business schools in Latin America.

The governments of France and Norway and the Andean Development Corporation (CAF) are supporting the congress, which has also received backing from many national, regional and international organizations.

The congress will be inaugurated by IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias, founder of the initiative, who has said that “it is necessary to fully reintegrate the ethical dimension in development in both thought and practice.”

The congress will focus discussion on innovative ways to apply ethical values in areas such as economics, the design of development policies, the social responsibility of the private sector, the role of volunteers, the responsibilities of the various participants in society and the role of universities in promoting cultural and ethical values.

Among the speakers during the event will be economist Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize laureate, and French Philosopher Edgar Morin. Sen has warned that divorcing economics from ethics results in impoverishment, while Morin has argued the need of an ethical vision during times of rapid technological advance.

According to Carlos Degrossi, dean of the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, the site of the congress, “The university should be in the vanguard of recovering the relationship between ethics and economics and should actively incorporate into its curricula an analysis of the ethical challenges in the different areas of learning, particularly economics and management.”

Other prominent speakers are Michel Crozier, founder of the Center for the Sociology of Organizations; former Vice President of Costa Rica Rebeca Grynspan; Desmond McNeill, director of the Center for Development and Environment at the University of Oslo; economist Ignacy Sachs; the rector of the Catholic University of Venezuela, Luis Ugalde; the rector of the Hurtado University of Chile, Fernando Montes; and the president of the Bank Association of Argentina, Carlos Heller.

The participants will organize workshops to develop guidelines and concrete recommendations on developing ethical values and social capital that will be offered to economists, managers, accountants, administrators and other professionals associated with development. They will also analyze ways to promote national agendas for discussion and action on ethics and development.

In addition to organizing the congress, the Inter-American Initiative on Social Capital, Ethics and Development, recently established by the IDB, is forming an alliance of several public and private organizations for a wide range of activities designed to strengthen the ethical dimensions of development, mobilize social capital and encourage projects with an ethical base that are supported by multiple institutions.

“The great receptiveness for this conference demonstrates a thirst for ethics,” commented Bernardo Kliksberg, the general coordinator of the initiative. “We are taking concrete steps to strengthen a culture of solidarity, which is so necessary in today’s Latin America, which is coping with severe social problems.”