Recovery in Latin America must be green, digital and people-focused, says CAF president

With 8% of the world's population, Latin America registers more than 30% of total deaths.

The Latin America-CAF Development Bank is committed to a green and digital economy, together with a strengthening of multilateral action, to achieve an economic reactivation in the region, after the roof that the pandemic has meant.

"The recovery must necessarily be in the case of green Latin America, digital and focused on people," says the executive president of CAF, the Colombian Sergio Díaz-Granados in an interview with EFE.

The new head of CAF, in the position since September 2, insists that "the pandemic leaves the poorest region, more indebted and with more dead regarding the global situation, and that is a reality that we have to leave at the moment."

Díaz-Granados recalls that with just 8 % of the world's population, Latin America records more than 30 % of the total dead.

According to the latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO), Latin America and the Caribbean have registered 1.4 million deaths, of the total of 4.6 around the world, with a population of more than 600 million inhabitants, compared to 7,900 of the entire planet.

Therefore, he insists: "The answer to be given to this challenge that the COVID has left us is a multilateral response, it is an answer that requires a combination of coordination and mobilization factors that allows our governments to prepare to trace what the pandemic has meant so far."

A green and digital solution

A change in the energy matrix to reduce the carbon footprint or boost reforestation to combat climate change, are some of the CAF's proposals to face the immediate future.

For this, its president wants to turn this entity “into an active bank in green financing”, so they propose from 26 % of the financing dedicated to this type of activity that it had in 2020 to 40 % in 2026, with projects that can range from climatic action to biodiversity.

"If the world wants to advance carbon neutrality, they must necessarily take into account Latin America", he explains, and gives as an example the reforestation.

And before the digital gap that left the pandemic, with huge rural areas where the lack of coverage deprived thousands of children and young people of education during the months of confinement, CAF is committed to digitalization for economic reactivation.

"The basis of reactivation has to have the digital, to quickly recover lost time and has to have young people and women also in the center of the action (...), the two most difficult labor markets to break the inertia of unemployment," says Díaz-Granados.

And for this, he insists on working much more on the "infrastructure preparation in the territories."

Integration

The new executive president of CAF explains that he sees a great interest “in recovering and improving physical integration in Latin America”, in border posts, in electrical interconnection, in digital integration, in improving the trade of services (…).

Although he acknowledges that in the end, what mobilizes integration is "the political will." "We will advance to the extent that the partners want to do it and we will be ready to continue promoting the initiatives," he concludes.

However, he insists: "The global voice of Latin America will be better and stronger to the extent that we are more coordinated."

Regarding the role of Spain, which in 2022 will turn twenty years as a member of the CAF, Díaz-Granados wants this country to be a “platform” to involve new partners in the European Union.

Díaz-Granados, who visited Spain this week for two days, held meetings with the First Vice President of the Government and Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, and with the third vice president and Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, in addition to the CEOE, the main Spanish business organization, among other entities.

The Latin America-CAF Development Bank is made up of 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Spain, Portugal and 13 Latin American private banks.Guns with 13 offices to meet the projects developed in the region.