A Brief History of the IPES

The IPES has changed greatly since the first edition was published in 1961.That edition was published under the terms of an agreement whereby the United States Government designated the IDB in 1960 as Administrator of the Social Progress Trust Fund (SPTF). The United States assigned $525 million to this Fund to finance social development projects in Latin America and the Caribbean in the context of the Alliance for Progress. The report contained information on the operations of the Fund during the fiscal year from June 19 through December 31, 1961, the progress of the projects for which disbursements were made and other matters relating to the Fund, including a factual presentation of the measures being taken in the borrowing countries to accomplish the objectives stated in Section 1 of the Act of Bogotá, which established the IDB as the administrator of the SPTF.  

The resources of the SPTF were fully committed by 1965, and by the end of 1970 the SPTF’s loan commitments had been disbursed. Consequently, the United States Government relieved the IDB of the obligation to issue a report on the SPTF. Since 1970 the IDB’s financial statements have been published in the Annual Report of the Bank, and the IPES has focused on the general economic and social trends of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, with economic data compiled in a statistical appendix available at the end of the report.

Over the following three decades, one chapter of each edition of the IPES was dedicated to an issue of particular relevance to the region. In the mid-1990s the IPES was again refocused and assumed its present form. With the advent of new technology such as personal computers, the Internet and statistical packages—and because other international organizations such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) were already focused on gathering economic and social data from the region—the IDB decided to refocus the report towards the analysis of pressing issues for the region from a comparative perspective. The IPES thus focused on examining the strengths and weaknesses of each country and of the region as a whole, raising fundamental questions and producing inputs and tools to help researchers and policymakers understand the key elements of development.  

Please click here to see the IPES volumes since 1997. Other issues of the report are available at the IDB’s Felipe Herrera Library.