CAF to Help Developed Countries Fund Latin America’s Digital and Integration Infrastructure

The COVID-19 pandemic will mean a 9 percent drop in Latin American economies despite the efforts of governments, businesses and workers. In an effort to foster the region’s economic revival, CAF—development bank of Latin America—has provided a record USD 16 billion this year, and is also planning to structure a fund toward digital infrastructure and integration projects with the help of its 19 member countries.

To that end, CAF intends to issue bonds in international capital markets, which will be backed by a group of developed countries, and whose revenues are to be invested in the regional bank’s member countries through loans. The institution has already identified as many as 490 quality projects across 11 subsectors, aligned with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement to Combat Climate Change.

Post-COVID-19 Economic Recovery and the Future of the Social Contract in the Americas, A Conversation about Coronavirus, Climate Change and the Environment: Challenges Faced by Latin America and the Caribbean, and Success and Failure: Our Healthcare Systems Under Pressure, are some of the main issues to be addressed during the 24th Annual CAF Conference, which has brought together the Inter-American Dialogue and the Organization of American States since 1997, and is one of the main events in the hemisphere to discuss and analyze major political, economic and social trends in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The 24th Annual CAF Conference will be attended by leaders such as Uruguayan president Luis Lacalle Pou and Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, as well as World Bank vice president and chief economist Carissa F. Etienne, World Bank vice president and chief economist Carmen Reinhart, PepsiCo Latin America CEO Paula Santilli, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean executive secretary Alicia Bárcena, CAF executive president Luis Carranza, Inter-American Dialogue president Michael Shifter and OAS secretary general Luis Almagro.