ASUNCIÓN — The Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group) today launched LAC Crece, a platform for accelerating private-sector-led growth through sequenced, prioritized, and financed action. Through LAC Crece, the IDB Group helps align public action and private investment to unlock productivity, growth, and jobs.
Over the past 60 years, Latin America and the Caribbean expanded at an average annual rate of just 1.8%, while East Asian economies grew more than three times faster. This gap has compounded over time, helping to explain why countries that were once poorer than those in the Americas are now far ahead in development.
“Private-sector-led growth is a necessity,” said IDB Group President Ilan Goldfajn. “Public-sector resources cannot deliver the scale or pace of growth the region needs. The public sector needs to focus on reforms, better regulations, enabling infrastructure, and removing barriers to growth, while the private sector enhances investment and promotes productivity gains. Growth is the channel to create jobs, reduce poverty, and advance long-term development.”
LAC Crece focuses on unlocking private investment by helping governments address the practical barriers that hold investment back and by organizing reforms, public investments, infrastructure, and financing in ways that allow projects and businesses to move forward faster.
The platform turns existing knowledge about development constraints into sequenced, prioritized, and financed action. It identifies obstacles such as regulatory bottlenecks, permitting delays, and institutional constraints, and aligns policy reforms, infrastructure investments, and financial instruments to address them.
LAC Crece mobilizes the full IDB Group toolkit.
Sovereign lending from the IDB supports reforms and creates the enabling conditions for private-sector investment. Private-sector financing from IDB Invest helps expand investment in key sectors, and IDB Lab supports startups and entrepreneurs that drive innovation and new economic activity.
The IDB is already working in El Salvador and in Bolivia to remove obstacles to investment, while beginning the same approach in the Dominican Republic and Ecuador.
The platform complements the IDB’s Country Strategies by focusing on sequencing and execution. It helps governments determine which reforms or investments should come first and how institutions coordinate implementation — so that private investment flows not just years from now, but today.
About the IDB Group
The Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group) is the leading source of financing and knowledge for improving lives in Latin America and the Caribbean. It comprises the IDB, which works with the region’s public sector and enables the private sector; IDB Invest, which directly supports private companies and projects; and IDB Lab, which spurs entrepreneurial innovation.
Mathus Ruiz,Rafael Alejandro
Communications Lead Spec-Press Med
