IDB and France Expand Latin America Partnership, Strengthen Sustainable Development Impact

• The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Government of France, through the French Development Agency (AFD), to continue expanding their productive partnership in LAC.
• The IDB-AFD joint pipeline for 2022 has identified areas of collaboration of $593 million for the private sector and over $1.5 billion in sovereign guaranteed operations in Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Colombia, and Ecuador.
• More about the AFD-IDB partnership can be found here.

Today, IDB President, Mauricio Claver-Carone and Director General of AFD Group, Rémy Rioux, met in Paris to celebrate the partnership’s achievements to date and explore additional opportunities to foster greater investment in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The meeting continues engagements by the leaders of the two institutions over the past two years to deepen IDB-AFD collaboration on strategic issues and to structure a co-financing pipeline for the 2021-2022 period.

This high-level meeting marked the end of the sixth AFD-IDB Deep Dive Meeting, which highlighted the track record and impressive steps to increase collaboration between the institutions. The IDB and AFD together have mobilized $4.7 billion in joint projects, with $3.7 billion in joint and parallel co-financing achieved together in the past two years alone, largely surpassing the original 2018 co-financing agreement target of $1 billion. Meanwhile, the entities’ private-sector arms, Proparco and IDB Invest, have jointly financed projects totaling $565 million. The AFD has also committed $5 million in grant financing to IDB projects related to gender, aging and climate change.

As part of the reinvigorated commitment to continue expanding the AFD-IDB partnership, President Claver-Carone and Director General Rioux signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to streamline the process for grant contributions from AFD to IDB technical cooperation programs. This agreement will allow the institutions to mobilize additional financial resources and knowledge for IDB projects promoting sustainable development and poverty alleviation in LAC, with a particular focus on social and climate sustainability.

“The IDB and France has a strong and expansive partnership that will yield in positive results for Latin America and the Caribbean. I am proud to say that the AFD Group is now our largest European bilateral financing partner and want to thank the French Ministry for Economy and Finance, AFD, Proparco and the MEDEF for our fruitful dialogue. As a result of our continued collaboration and innovation, together we can more effectively address the development priorities of Latin America and the Caribbean,” said IDB President Mauricio Claver-Carone.

"The IDB is a historic partner of AFD in Latin America since we started our activity in the region in 2007. Over the years, our partnership has strengthened and deepened, covering today a wide range of countries, sectors and subjects, with two shared priorities: the fight against climate change and the fight against all forms of inequalities. Proud of what public development banks can achieve when working together and looking forward to our future collaboration in many new areas such as social protection or sustainable cities” said AFD general director Rémy Rioux.

Further proof of the flourishing partnership between AFD and the IDB is our joint pipeline for 2022 of about $593 million for the private sector and over $1.5 billion in sovereign guaranteed operations in Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Colombia, and Ecuador in decarbonization, transport, climate change, and solid waste, with a focus on policy-based loan (PBLs), which have been a key instrument in the success of the partnership as they provide flexible and liquid funding to support policy reforms, institutional changes, or both, throughout the region.