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The following operations were approved in recent weeks by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC), and the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF).

Argentina
A $1.4 million MIF grant to help finance a retail commerce training program.

Belize
A $21.3 million IDB loan to improve the country’s capacity to respond to hurricanes and other natural disasters.

A $771,650 MIF grant to help establish a policy, regulatory, and purchasing environment that encourages the expansion of the domestic private sector in publicly and privately funded health services.

Bolivia
A $40 million loan from the IDB’s Fund for Special Operations for a project to improve potable water and sanitation services in small municipalities of up to 5,000 inhabitants.

A $7.4 million loan from the IDB’s Fund for Special Operations to support the country’s Year 2000 National Population and Housing Census.

A $1 million MIF grant for a craft development program.

Brazil
A $250 million IDB loan to expand the coverage of the country’s secondary education system and improve its quality.

A $200 million IDB loan for the second stage of a massive project to improve the environmental quality in the Tietê River watershed that drains the metropolitan area of São Paulo.

A $185 million IDB loan to finance a training program for nursing aides.

A $100 million private sector IDB loan guarantee for the expansion of two electricity distribution companies, Companhia Paulista de Força e Luz, S.A., and Rio Grande Energia, S.A.

A $75 million IDB loan and an $80 million syndicated loan to Ecovias dos Imigrantes S.A., a private firm with a 20-year toll road concession from the state of São Paulo, to construct, rehabilitate, upgrade, and maintain the Anchieta-Imigrantes highway toll road system.

An $11 million IDB loan to help prepare the groundwork for a major effort to promote ecotourism in the Amazon.

A $2,250,000 MIF grant to implement several pilot projects that demonstrate promising private sector-led business models to provide renewable energy services to isolated communities.

Chile
A $25 million IDB loan to Comunicación y Telefonía Rural S.A., a private company, to provide fully functional telephone service in areas of the southern part of the country where service is now minimal.

A $2 million IIC senior loan and a $3 million subordinated loan to Invertec Foods S.A. to expand its apple and capsicum dehydration facilities and increase its supply of apples, which are used as the raw material in the dehydration process.

A $1.1 million MIF grant to strengthen Chile’s water and sanitation regulatory authority.

A $1.9 million MIF grant to lay the institutional and methodological foundations for developing a national system of job competency certification.

Colombia
A $300 million IDB rapid dispersing loan for a series of reforms to improve the government’s capacity to deal with problems in its financial sector and improve the sector’s efficiency.

A total of $133.7 million in redirected IDB loans to assist in the recovery of the country’s coffee-producing region from a 1999 earthquake.

A $1,231,000 MIF grant for a program to introduce quality and environmental management system standards in small and medium-size enterprises.

A $640,000 MIF grant to improve the productivity of small-scale farmers in the center-south area of the country’s Cauca Valley Department.

Costa Rica
A $900,000 MIF grant to promote competitiveness among national suppliers of high technology multinationals.

A $685,000 MIF grant to help the private sector to define mechanisms for training young people for the tourism sector and to provide for their entry into the labor market.

Dominican Republic
A $150 million loan guarantee for La Compañía de Electricidad de San Pedro Macoris, Ltda., a special purpose company that will build a 300 megawatt, combined-cycle thermal power plant and additional facilities.
El Salvador
A $29,847,000 IDB loan to establish and consolidate systems for environmental management to reduce hazards and economic losses caused by pollution.

Guatemala
A $150 million IDB loan to help fund rehabilitation and maintenance of highways and rural roads for the period 2000–2003.

A $55.44 million IDB loan for the second phase of a long-term program to improve basic health services, particularly for low- income people.

A $19,532,000 IDB loan to help finance the first phase of a six-year $65.9 million project to strengthen the country’s municipal sector and its principal municipal support agency.

A $10 million IIC A loan and an $11 million B loan to Hidro-eléctrica Río Las Vacas S.A. to develop, construct, and operate a 20 megawatt power plant.

Guyana
A $30 million loan from the IDB’s Fund for Special Operations for a comprehensive air transport sector improvement program that includes regulatory and institutional reforms, investments in infrastructure, and institutional modernization.

A $27 million loan from the IDB’s Fund for Special Operations to improve the quality and availability of water supply and sewerage services in Georgetown.

A $27 million loan from the IDB’s Fund for Special Opeations for a program in which the government will divest large amounts of land to assist the settlement of low-income families.

A $900,000 MIF grant to develop a microenterprise training services market.

Haiti
A $2 million MIF grant to set up an incentive mechanism that will encourage private enterprises to increase their efficiency and output through training.

Honduras
A $26 million loan from the IDB’s Fund for Special Operations to promote and consolidate reforms at the municipal level for efficient and sustainable potable water and sanitation services.

Jamaica
A $10 million IDB emergency loan for an ongoing government effort to ensure that critical computer systems are Y2K-compliant and to develop contingency plans for systems that are not fully complaint and may be affected by failures.

An $8.4 million IDB loan to help the government establish a more dynamic, equitable, and efficient land market.

Mexico
A $800 million IDB loan to strengthen the autonomy and administrative management capacity of state and municipal governments throughout the country. This is the largest financing ever by the IDB for a single operation in Mexico.

A $75 million IDB loan from the ordinary capital and a $102.3 million syndicated loan to Termo-eléctrica del Golfo, a private sector company, for building and operating a 230 megawatt power plant in the state of San Luis de Potosí.

A $4 million MIF trust investment in the Tijuana Development Fund and a $1,370,000 grant to Consejo de Desarrollo de Tijuana to promote equity and quasi-equity investments to support small enterprises in the export and maquila supplier sector.

Nicaragua
A $13.9 million loan from the IDB’s Fund for Special Operations for a program to modernize the management of water and sewerage services.

A $10 million loan from the IDB’s Fund for Special Operations to strengthen the country’s fiscal and customs systems.

A $9,255,479 loan from the IDB’s Fund for Special Operations and a $330,000 grant to strengthen regional and local government and institutional capacity in the Atlantic Coast region.

A $6 million IIC financing, including a senior loan of up to $4 million and a subordinated loan of up to $2 million, to Banco de Crédito Centroamericano S.A. to further the development of small and medium-size enterprises.

A $4 million IIC senior loan and subordinated loan of $2 million to Banco de Crédito Centro-americano S.A. for small and medium-size enterprises.

A $1,022,000 MIF grant to help establish a training and accreditation program for construction workers and to promote the modernization of the national training system.

A $923,000 MIF grant to strengthen the technical and professional skills of public accountants and private independent auditing firms.

Panama
A $48,850,000 IDB loan to support social investments and small-scale infrastructure in low-income communities.

A $15.8 million IDB loan to help the implement the country’s Law of the Environment and its National Environmental Strategy.

A $1,050,000 MIF grant to provide continuing support to the country’s Interoceanic Regional Authority to transfer government-owned assets to private investors.

Paraguay
A $67 million IDB loan to support the second stage of the National Rural Roads Program, which will upgrade the level of service on a substantial part of the priority rural roads network.

A $7.5 million IIC credit facility to Banco Alemán Paraguayo S.A. for on-lending to small and medium-size enterprises, mainly for export-related products.

Perú
A $120 million IDB loan to further assist the reconstruction of physical infrastructure and the resumption of services affected by El Niño.

An $87 million IDB loan for the first stage of a $197 million program to modernize and reform the health care system in order to improve its quality and expand its coverage.

A $1 million IDB loan to help the National Customs Superintendency consolidate and expand its quality system and to meet standards of the International Organization for Standardization.

Venezuela
A $100 million IDB loan to strengthen the country’s capacity to carry out scientific research and technological innovation and to improve the competitiveness of its productive sector.

Regional
A $7.5 million MIF investment and a $100,000 grant for the Central American Small Enterprise Fund.

A $10 million MIF equity financing and a $170,000 grant for a program in which the Compañía Española de Financiación de Desarrollo will promote productive investment in small businesses in Latin America.

A $3.8 million MIF grant to improve the quality of training in the agricultural sector for Mercosur countries.

A $1,291,600 IDB grant to Mundo Maya Organization for an economic and social development program in five countries that will showcase and preserve shared cultural, historical and environmental heritage and provide alternative sources of income for the poor.

A $600,000 MIF grant for a capacity-building program for small and medium-size entrepreneurs in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Panama.

A $300,000 IDB grant to Fundación para un Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano for training for journalists in Latin America.

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