WASHINGTON – The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has been awarded the International Knowledge Management Award 2025 by Knowledge Management Austria and the global Knowledge for Development Partnership (K4DP). The distinction recognizes the IDB’s leadership in knowledge management for sustainable development and its ability to connect evidence, learning, and action across Latin America and the Caribbean.
For 66 years, the IDB’s mandate has gone beyond financing. From the outset, it was tasked with both supporting development through funding and generating and sharing knowledge with the region. This dual role was reaffirmed in 2024 with the approval of the Institutional Strategy 2024–2030: Transforming for Greater Impact and Scale, which places the Knowledge Bank agenda at the center of development effectiveness.
Knowledge is one of the IDB’s key comparative advantages. Rather than focusing solely on the volume of studies it produces, the Bank prioritizes how evidence is integrated into public policy, investment decisions, and the design and supervision of projects. This approach is reflected in the IDB Knowledge Loop, which connects analytical work and operations so that research and data inform project design, while implementation generates new lessons that feed back into future projects and studies.
To sustain this feedback loop, the IDB has strengthened governance through its Knowledge Advisory Committee (KAC), which aligns sector knowledge agendas with institutional priorities, updates internal policies, and promotes the quality and influence of knowledge products.
The award also shines a light on the Bank’s progress in building a modern digital knowledge ecosystem. The IDB Group Knowledge Platform has become the internal digital backbone for curated and contextualized knowledge, supported by AI, while tools such as the Lessons Learned Writing Assistant turn day-to-day project experience into institutional memory.
On the public side, the revamped Open Data Catalog strengthens data transparency, and the AI-powered tool Seek lets users interact with the Bank’s catalog of peer-reviewed publications, reinforcing IDB's commitment to open knowledge and to knowledge as a driver of impact.
Institutional initiatives such as Knowledge Days, Operations Days, the Knowledge Excellence Prize and the Superheroes of Development initiative are helping embed learning into day-to-day work and recognize teams and partners that use knowledge to improve development outcomes.
The International Knowledge Management Award 2025 acknowledges this sustained effort and the IDB’s role as a global reference in knowledge management for sustainable development. The award ceremony will be held online on December 11, 2025, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. (Vienna time), and will be open to a global audience.
About the IDB
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a member of the IDB Group, is devoted to improving lives across Latin America and the Caribbean. Founded in 1959, the Bank works with the region’s public sector to design and enable impactful, innovative solutions for sustainable and inclusive development. Leveraging financing, technical expertise, and knowledge, it promotes growth and well-being in 26 countries. Visit our website: www.iadb.org/en.
Salgado Derqui,Javier Jose
