Inter-American Development Bank Annual Report 2008: The Year in Review

Date
Feb 2009
This Annual Report 2008: A Year in Review contains a review of the Bank's operations in 2008, loans, guarantees and grants, and in a separate volume, Management's Discussion and Analysis: Ordinary Capital; the financial statements of the Bank; and general appendices. The IDB's response to the effects of the global financial, economic, and social crisis on our region has been swift and sure, as they provided flexibility to those most in need (Haiti, for example), so that they could provide subsidies to producers and consumers whose credit had disappeared and whose families were at risk. The operational program benefited from the approval of the second phase of the Integrated Business Plan for Private Sector and Non-Sovereign-Guaranteed Operations, a new framework for technical assistance and three new thematic funds: AquaFund, the Aid for Trade Strategic Thematic Fund and the Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation, the latter a large-scale, grant-based initiative of the Government of Spain. Among the various initiatives the IDB undertook in response to the export dimension of the crisis was a rapid expansion of its successful Trade Finance Facilitation Program, through which the Bank provides guarantees to regional commercial lending institutions' financing of international trade transactions.