Board members: [from left, front row] Vinita Watson, Luis Linde, Nelly Lacayo-Anderson, Jonathan Davis Arzac, Jaime Quijandría, Adina Bastidas, Tsuyoshi Takahashi, Hans Hammann and José Carlos Miranda [Back row] Marcelo Bisogno, Winston A. Cox, Fernando Eleta Casanovas, Luis Guillermo Echeverri, Roberto B. Saladín, Stewart Mills, Xavier Eduardo Santillán, Jan E. Boyer, Olivier Myard, Hugo Rafael Cáceres Agüero, Jill Johnson, Alejandro Foxley Tapia, Martín Bès, Eugenio Díaz-Bonilla, Sérgio Portugal, Héctor E. Morales, Raúl Barrios, Francesca Manno and Jerry Christopher Butler

The IDB shareholders—its 47 member countries— are represented by the Board of Governors, the highest decision-making authority of the Bank. The Governors delegate many of their powers to the Board of Executive Directors, whose 14 members they elect or appoint for three-year terms. Executive Directors for the United States and Canada represent their own countries; all others represent groups of countries.

The Board of Executive Directors also includes 14 Alternates, who have full power to act when their principals are absent. The Board of Executive Directors is responsible for day-to-day oversight of the Bank’s operations. It establishes the institution’s policies, approves projects, sets interest rates for Bank loans, authorizes borrowings in the capital markets and approves the institution’s administrative budget. The work of the Board of Executive Directors is guided by the Regulations of the Board of Executive Directors and the Code of Ethics for Executive Directors.

The agendas and minutes of the Board of Executive Directors’ meetings are public documents, as is the Board’s annual work program with its quarterly updates.

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• Governors and Alternates
• Executive Directors and Alternates
• Channels of Communication and Depositories
• Principal Officers
• Country Offices and Representatives
• Member Countries

Board of Executive Directors

The IDB has 14 Executive Directors who represent the Bank’s 47 member countries. Directors serve full time for a period of three years. The principal corporate issues resolved by the Board in 2007 are described below.

The Audit Committee oversees the Bank’s financial reporting, risk management and internal controls, internal and external auditing, and institutional integrity. During the year, the committee considered the work of the external auditors on the Bank’s annual financial statements and reviewed the Bank’s quarterly financial statements. The committee also reviewed documentation on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting and organized a number of training sessions for committee members.

The Budget and Financial Policies Committee reviews the Bank’s administrative and capital budgets and financial policy issues. In 2007 it discussed the creation of a grant facility as part of the Bank’s multilateral debt relief and concessional financing reform; considered the review of the Single Currency Facility; and the establishment of two funds for sustainable energy and climate change activities.

The committee also spent a considerable amount of time on issues related to the Bank’s realignment process approved in December 2006, including discussion of the proposed 2007 phase one and phase two realignment budgets and 2007 administrative budget reallocation to the new Bank organizational structure.

The Organization, Human Resources, and Board Matters Committee deals with organizational issues related to Board management, adjustments in the structure of the Bank, human resources, the Independent Investigation Mechanism and the Bank’s Annual Meeting. In 2007, the committee reviewed issues in implementation of the Bank’s realignment process, with a view to better serving the needs of the borrowing member countries (See Box 11 • The New Bank).

The committee also considered the Bank’s Opportunities for the Majority Initiative, a proposal geared to the poorest populations of the region; recommended the appointment of three members of the Administrative Tribunal to the Board of Executive Directors; and discussed the 2008–2010 Information and Technology Strategy.

The Policy and Evaluation Committee considers the policies and strategies that guide Bank operations in the region and the instruments used to implement them, and oversees the Office of Evaluation and Oversight. During the year, the committee reviewed the disaster risk management policy, Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Initiative, Water and Sanitation Initiative, modifications to the Conditional Credit Line for Investment Projects (CCLIP), amendment of the Immediate Response Facility for Emergencies Caused by Natural and Unexpected Disasters, and an assessment of the new lending instruments.

The Programming Committee considers country and regional programming documents, country strategies and country program evaluations; reviews progress reports on the Bank’s lending, technical cooperation and nonfinancial product pipelines; and evaluates guidelines for the allocation of concessional resources. In 2007, the committee reviewed the country strategies for Costa Rica, Haiti and Suriname, and the Bank’s Regional Strategy for Support to the Caribbean Community, as well as country program evaluations for Costa Rica, Haiti, Honduras and Peru. The committee also discussed the implementation of major initiatives approved by the Board of Governors in 2006, multilateral debt relief and concessional finance reform.