Ex IDB official named minister
Honduran President Carlos Flores in July named Iliana Waleska Pastor to head the country’s social investment fund. Pastor, who is the sixth woman named to Flores’ cabinet, was the IDB’s representative in Guatemala during the years in which that country implemented a peace plan that ended 36 years of civil war. In making his announcement, Flores said that in Honduras, “never have women had such responsibility and been integrated this way in the country’s government.”

Computer activist honored
When Time magazine looked for outstanding young Latin Americans to feature in a special issue on leaders for the new millennium, an obvious choice was Rodrigo Baggio, a participant in the IDB’s Common Futures Forum and a close collaborator with the Bank’s youth programs. A Brazilian computer expert and social activist, Baggio founded a group dedicated to spreading the digital revolution to the slums and isolated rural areas of his country and beyond. Among other things, his group has established computer schools in 78 favelas and persuaded Microsoft to donate $1.5 million in software for use in his programs.

Well deserved recognition
Once considered an economic stepchild, microenterprise is now winning overdue recognition, including awards for outstanding contributions to the field. At the Second Inter-American Microenterprise Forum, sponsored by the IDB in June in Buenos Aires, four organizations were awarded the first round of Inter-American Prizes for Microenterprise Development.
They were Financiera Calpiá, of El Salvador, a regulated financial institution; Fundación WWB, of Colombia, a nongovernmental financial organization; INSOTEC, a foundation in Ecuador that supports microenterprises and small business; and the National Center for Persons with Disabilities, of Trinidad and Tobago, an organization that helps disabled persons join the workforce. In announcing the awards, IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias noted that there are more than 50 million microenterprises in the region, employing some 150 million persons.