Analyzing the role of education in the Andean region

A welcome address by the CAF’s executive president, Enrique García, opened the Workshop for the Analysis and Discussion of Education Policies: Participation of the CAF in the Andean Region held recently at the CAF’s headquarters. The purpose of this workshop was to draw up guidelines for the Corporation’s future actions in the area of education.

The workshop was also attended by representatives of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank and the Unesco, as well as by academics from Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.

In his address, the CAF’s Executive President affirmed that, in the macroeconomic sphere, education is a critical determining factor for the development of an economy and that there is a direct relationship between people’s income and their level of education.

García explained that, in order to offer an effective response to these situations, the CAF has created the Vice-presidency of Environmental and Social Development, which includes education as one of the areas of interest.

He stressed that the CAF has acquired experience in educational policy issues through the “Andean Agenda for Education” initiative, where they have managed to form groups of experts who, with the leadership of a newspaper and the support of the CAF, analyze education issues as a way of promoting the discussion of educational policies and their positioning on countries’ public agendas.

He also pointed out that credits have been granted in the area of education, quoting as examples the financing granted to Ecuador for Plan Esperanza (Plan of Hope), to Venezuela through the multi-sector public investment program, and to Peru for its economic and social development infrastructure program.

According to García, with the creation of the VDSA, the CAF seeks to establish its own educational policy line that will make it possible to achieve the biggest possible impacts, taking into account the fact that available resources are scarce. This means that it will be important to take account of the experience of the multilateral bodies so as to repeat good practices but not the mistakes. “In this way,” he claimed, “we are aiming for the CAF to become a benchmark for the region in good education projects.”