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The IADB carries out periodic consultations with Latin American civil society organizations both at national and regional level. The last regional consultation took place at Campinas (São Paulo) on 13-15 February. This meeting represented a first approach between the new president and social representatives. The next one will take place within the framework of the Annual Meeeting of the Board of Governors to be held in April, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

The IADB has been trying to develop a policy of active relationship with civil society for more than a decade. The modalities for participation implemented include consultations through its website, dialogues in terms of sectoral policies and the promotion of a Civil Society Advisory Council (CSAC) to be set up in each country with the main purpose of evaluating the development projects financed by the Bank.

In this framework, the Bank carries out periodic consultations with Latin American civil society organizations both at national and regional level. In this case, the last regional consultation took place at Campinas (São Paulo) on 13-15 February. This was the Sixth Annual IADB – Civil Society meeting and as usual it was carried out before the Annual Meeeting of the Board of Governors to be held in April, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

In 2005, this event was carried out in Panama, also in February. Ideas were exchanged on issues such as the environment, state reform, governability and transparency, poverty reduction, regional integration and free trade.

At that opportunity, the general meeting was chaired by Enrique Iglesias, being this his last formal meeting with civil society. During his presidency, the Bank’s management had a discourse of total openness to participation with regards to the evaluation of IADB policies. However, the results obtained in practice were not always as expected.

Ahead of this meeting, the figure of the new president chairing the IADB board gave it a special character, since it was the first contact at this kind of event to be headed by Luis Alberto Moreno. In this sense, this meeting represented a first approach between the new president and social representatives, many of whom participated in several similar events, having experience in terms of regional and local projects.

This meeting was attended by representatives of more than one hundred social organizations from all over Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States. Among them, it is worth mentioning the strong representation of the local country, with an important delegation from the CSAC Brazil and Latin American representatives from those countries which had their debt cancellation approved by the IMF and the World Bank: Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guyana.

In these cases, civil society organizations have been promoting a strong campaign in favour of the incorporation of the IADB to the debt cancellation programme promoted by the G8, since a significant part of the debts undertaken by Latin American countries are owed to the IDB.

The meeting started with the presentation of the main conclusions and recommendations of the Fifth Meeting held in Panama, through the particular follow-up to issues that were addressed there. Later on, different workshops were developed around the following major issues:

• Poverty reduction, remittances, economic growth and distribution.
• Micro, small and medium enterprise, credit and financial services, and mobilisation of the productive potential of poor people.
• Governability, transparency and state reform.
• Sustainable development and environment.
• Regional integration and infrastructure.
• Participation and social inclusion.

The second work session was joined by IADB president, Luis Alberto Moreno, who presented his view on the IADB – civil society relationship, listened to the presentation of the different workshops, received concerns from the organizations and gave each one of them an official response through his different spokespeople.

In his speech, Moreno committed himself to:

• continue to carry out the annual meeting with civil society, since this was one of the main questions of organizations attending the event upon the change of president in the institution;
• set up CSACs in those countries where they do not exist and strengthen them in those countries in which they have a weak activity;
• to consider the possibility of setting up a regional CSAC.

According to the widespread opinion of civil society representatives, the promotion of CSAC has only been effective in Brazil and Honduras, where they managed to achieve an operation that met the expectations of civil society organizations. With regards to the rest of the continent the situation is diverse and it is there where an increased openness is demanded from the Bank. From its official position, the IADB acknowledges the importance of incorporating civil society participation to the scrutiny of development projects, but in many cases the CSACs have not been set up, or they have been set up as a formal instance that fails to incorporate civil society contributions in an effective way.

Finally, Moreno pointed out that the issue of debt cancellation for the poorest Latin American countries is on the Bank’s agenda and will be surely dealt with during the Annual Meeeting of the IADB Board of Governors in Belo Horizonte. On 31 March, prior to the Annual Meeting, Governors will be meeting with civil society representatives gathered there, on account of which many organizations intend to put forward their recommendations to the IADB at this event.

Related Information:

Background documents of the discussion panels and group workshops

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