Edla Lula
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - Brazil was one of the countries chosen by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) to inaugurate the Creating Opportunities for All program. The program will be launched at an IADB conference in Washington (US), June 11-13, where private sectors, governments, and non-governmental organizations will discuss new ways to promote social inclusion.

The initiative will include Centers of Innovation and Opportunity to develop research and actions to resolve problems related to the low-income population. Between now and 2011, the bank plans to implement 100 pilot projects annually in the areas of Financial Democracy, Entrepreneurial Commitment, Basic Infrastructure, Housing, Digital Connectivity, and Personal Identification.

One of the proposals is to develop projects that involve partnerships between the public and private sectors. For this reason various business enterprises will present their experiences in the area of social responsibility at the weekend event. The speakers include the former president of the United States, Bill Clinton; the prime minister of Jamaica, Portia Simpson Miller; cardinal Oscar Rodriguez, of Honduras; the president of Telmex, Carlos Slim; Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute; Hernando de Soto, president of the Freedom and Development Institute ("Instituto Libertad y Desarrollo"); Nicholas Negorponte, from the One Laptop per Child Foundation; and Guilherme Leal, president of the Natura cosmetics firm.

The president of the IADB stressed that the bank will maintain its traditional financial support for government and private sector development programs. The amount to be made available for the projects will not be announced until September. The bank lends between US$ 5 billion and US$ 8 billion annually, and Brazil has received up to US$ 2 billion of the annual total. "A share of this will be destined to the new initiative," affirmed the IADB representative in Brazil, Waldemar Wirzig. Presidents Evo Morales, of Bolivia, and Álvaro Uribe, of Colombia, have been invited to attend the meeting.

Translation: David Silberstein