MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina – Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno urged leaders of the Americas to concentrate on fighting poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean by focusing development efforts on putting people and small enterprises first.
“We should focus on maintaining and accelerating economic expansion while improving the quality of growth in critical areas such as equity, inclusion and environmental sustainability,” Moreno said in a speech to the IV Summit of the Americas. “Now is the time to concentrate our efforts from the bottom up, in the trenches of development, where people make millions of small decisions that forge the economic destiny of our region.”
“In the years ahead the IDB will give a priority to helping its member countries design and apply effective mechanisms to empower this base of small businesses, consumers, property owners and producers, so they will become the engines of development,” he added, emphasizing the importance of employment opportunities as a mechanism for social mobility to assure democratic governance and social cohesion.
Moreno noted the need to generate a climate for fostering private initiative that would combine physical infrastructure and adequate regulatory and financial frameworks to promote business development. A focused public policy should encourage investment in human and social capital and establish a legal and institutional framework that is stable, just and transparent. He reiterated the IDB’s commitment to support the private sector in its member borrowing countries in their efforts to create greater capacity for investment, employment, savings and consumption.
Follow-up report
The IDB’s participation in the Summit of the Americas is in accord with the mandates of the institution, created in 1959 to accelerate the economic and social development of Latin America and the Caribbean. The main source of multilateral development finance to the region, the IDB is the world’s oldest and largest regional development bank.
The IDB presented a report to the IV Summit outlining the Bank’s response to mandates of the previous summits that were held in Quebec, Canada, in 2001 and Nuevo Leon, Mexico, in 2004. The Bank has developed 22 strategic programs in five areas: democratic governance, integration and economic development, environment and sustainable development, social development and equity, and connectivity and technological development.
The IDB has provided technical assistance to the Summit of the Americas process and its action plans and statements. It also has taken financial and technical measures to respond to its commitments and developed programs and projects to achieve the objectives. The Summit declarations have influenced the sector policies and strategies of the Bank, which follow the priorities established by the heads of state and government of the Western Hemisphere.