Contribution to municipal development in the Andean region

The Andean Development Corporation (CAF) today contributed US$150,000 to the Inter-American Agency for Cooperation and Development (IACD) of the Organization of American States. The grant will be used to finance the Integrated Assistance Program for the Institutional Development of the Municipalities of the Andean Region, whose purpose is to help the countries of the region consolidate and strengthen their decentralization processes.

The director general of the agency, Ronald Scheman, and the CAF executive president, Enrique García, signed the technical assistance agreements in the CAF headquarters in Caracas. The CAF head said the agreement is in the spirit of consolidating the process of institutional strengthening and modernization, and offering support for shareholder countries in a framework of governability and competitiveness.

In this context, aware of its important role as multilateral lender for the region and as a result of a continuing process of review and enrichment of its strategic vision, the CAF has incorporated new areas into its traditional fields of action aimed at contributing to the efforts of member countries to integrate into the globalized economy.

The Program provides technical assistance by providing consulting and education services to the municipalities, especially training for managers. The agreement also covers identification of the development needs of municipalities and the application of experiences and best practices developed in other regions, preferably Latin America and the Caribbean.

The CAF sees this initiative as an innovative way of bringing experiences to the Andean countries to act as catalytic guides that speed up the learning process of the receiving country, and put successful knowledge to work in similar socio-political contexts.

For the execution of the projects and activities, work plans will be drawn up under agreed guidelines to set up mechanisms that facilitate the flow of successful experiences in local government. The activities will be take place in the framework of each country's decentralization and local government policies. The CAF also plans to join the Agency's Advisory Group on Best Practices in Municipal Development. Finally, the Program can be seen as a potential generator of a regional market for knowledge and the horizontal transfer of technical cooperation.