Luque (Paraguay), Mar 14 (EFE). The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group concluded the plenary sessions of its Board of Governors annual meetings on Saturday in Paraguay, consolidating the progress made by the institution since 2024 toward implementing a strategic shift that increases its impact and involves the private sector more actively.
At the opening plenary session held on Friday, Paraguay’s Minister of Economy and Finance, Carlos Fernández Valdovinos, was elected the new chair of the Board of Governors. He assumed the role to address the major economic challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean.
Fernández Valdovinos said the key challenge is “to translate the potential we have today into realities, that is, into sustained growth, productive investment, and real well-being for all our citizens.”
In his remarks, IDB Group President Ilan Goldfajn welcomed the successful capitalization of IDB Invest, announced during the meetings in Paraguay, as well as the ongoing process to create a new Civil Society Engagement Strategy, which will further improve the impact of the institution’s financing.
Three areas for progress
The Israeli-Brazilian economist also highlighted three areas where the region can make progress.
The first is increasing the role of the private sector in investing in development projects, since entrepreneurs and investors have greater resources than public administrations.
The second is promoting the critical minerals industry while simultaneously creating a complete value chain that makes the resulting growth more equitable and structural. The third is strengthening regional integration.
During this year’s annual meetings in Paraguay, the group implemented significant new progress within IDBImpact+, the initiative launched in 2024 that consolidates the work of the institution’s three branches, IDB, IDB Invest, which is focused on the private sector, and IDB Lab, its innovation arm.
One such step is the completion of the $3.5 billion capitalization process of IDB Invest, which means the group now expects to have a financing capacity of $500 billion over the next decade, double that of the previous ten years. EFE
