- Up to $5 million will be awarded as non-refundable technical cooperation to civil society organizations
- The Call will support sustainable and inclusive development in vulnerable communities in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) launched the second call for proposals for civil society organizations that carry out activities focused on poverty reduction and social inclusion and development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The announcement was made by the IDB’s Executive Director for the Government of Japan, Yasuhiro Atsumi.
The call is for projects that support development through sustainable solutions in education, social protection, gender and rural community development in vulnerable communities in the 26 borrowing countries of the region.
Winning organizations will be awarded a total of $5 million in non-refundable technical cooperation; each project will receive between $500,000 and $1 million. The funds come from the Japan Special Fund for Poverty Reduction administrated by the Bank. Proposals must be submitted before May 15, 2013 through IDB’s website.
According to Roberto Vellutini, Vice President for Countries at the IDB, “we believe civil society organizations that have key technical capacity and community reach are natural operational partners for the IDB andin that they can provide innovative solutions and participative methods to solving development problems and in a sustainable manner”.
The announcement was made during at the IDB Annual Meeting in Panama during the Civil Society in Public-Private Partnerships: toward sustainable, inclusive development session, attended by some 200 people. At the event, opinions were exchanged and presentations of experiences and proposals from civil society, governments, private sector and IDB were made regarding the creation and implementation of innovative partnerships for sustainable, inclusive development.
In their role of social leaders and public figures, the panelists discussed lessons learned and best practices inprojects with high social impact.
Panelists included: Mauricio Macri, Government Chief of the City of Buenos Aires; Lucy Molinar, Minister of Education of Panama; Akira Yamada, Director General of the Latin American Bureau of MOFA of Japan; Mark Feierstein, Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean of USAID; Vidal Garza, Executive Director of Fundación FEMSA; Enrique Obarrio, Concertación Nacional para el Desarrollo en Panama and member of Panama’s ConSoc; Javier Zulueta, Executive Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, TECHO and Roberto Vellutini, Vice President for Countries, IDB.
IDB and Civil Society
IDB considers that Civil Society Organizations (CSO’s) are key partners in the development of the region. The Bank highly values the contribution these organizations make as technical experts, knowledge generators, project implementators, defenders of vulnerable communities and promoters of transparency.
IDB works directly with CSO’s through the participation in consults, dialogues, execution of projects with impact on development. In this regard, organizations have contributed greatly to IDB’s work and with their technical contributions and field knowledge of the communities where the bank operates.
Japan Special Fund for Poverty Reduction
The Japanese trust funds are the result of the cooperation and contribution efforts between IDB and Japan for the development of Latin America and the Caribbean. The resources of the Japanese Trust Funds have been directed to support small countries with few resources in social sectors such as the environment, infrastructure, and productive activities.
This Call for Proposals is specifically related to Community Development Programs of the Japan Special Fund for Poverty Reduction. This fund has an ample trajectory in the implementarion of community development programs in varied sectors of many countries with the contribution of many local community development organizations.