Caracas, Venezuela, June 08, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, CAF - Development Bank of Latin America - organizes a high-level conference that will address the main socioeconomic challenges faced by the region from a historical perspective.
Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner in Economics (2001), will be the keynote speaker and will present his vision of the global economic situation and the challenges that Latin America faces in the coming years. His dissertation will be followed by a panel composed by Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, Ángel Gurría, Secretary General of the OECD, Enrique Iglesias, Former Ibero-American Secretary General and Former President of the IDB, that will discuss the impact of Covid-19 on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Andrea Bernal, NTN 24 Anchor, moderate the debate.
The CAF Conference’s opening and closing remarks will imparted by Luis Carranza, Executive President of the institution.
- Date: Thursday, June 11, 2020
- Time: 10AM Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico and Panama / 11AM Bolivia, Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago / 12PM Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay / 7PM Spain
- Where: Online, via streaming (link below): https://www.caf.com/en/currently/events/2020/06/rethinking-the-present-and-future-of-latin-america/
A 50 years story
CAF was born in the early 1970s with a capital of $ 25 million provided by the 5 founding Andean countries (Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela). Today, it is composed of 19 shareholding countries (including Spain and Portugal) and a subscribed capital of $ 8 billion. Its historical evolution makes CAF one of the few successful integration stories in Latin America.
Over 50 years, the organization has financed USD 188 billion in projects for water, electricity, housing, education, health, mobility, and telecommunications, which have improved the quality of life for over 110 million Latin Americans. These figures include USD 11 billion for 77 integration projects in the past 20 years.
The contributions to the development of the region are outstanding: 77 million Latin Americans have benefited from urban mobility projects in the last 10 years; 29 million with water and sanitation projects in the last 15 years; 2 million children and adolescents have benefited from initiatives in education in the past 15 years. Additionally in 2019 alone, CAF financed the construction, improvement and rehabilitation of 1,294 km of roads; supported 23,213 SMEs; financed energy infrastructures that will provide power to more than 7 million people; and has neutralized the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated since the start of its operations, with the acquisition of 162,986 carbon credits from a project in the Peruvian Amazon.
“The success of CAF is also the success of the governments of the region, which over the years have demonstrated that they can put aside their political tensions and respect a mandate that has the ultimate goal of improving the quality of life of all Latin Americans, through technical and financial support to national and regional development agendas”, said Luis Carranza, Executive President of CAF.
The institution has also shown its relevance during the Covid-19 crisis, when it launched two credit lines for its member countries: USD 350 million for the attention of the health emergency; and another for USD 2,500 million, destined for countercyclical economic policies.