The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has launched the 2014 call for proposals of the Initiative for the Promotion of Regional Public Goods in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
The initiative is based on the premise that the countries of the region share challenges or opportunities for development that can be addressed or seized upon more effectively and efficiently by means of regional cooperation.
In 2014, the initiative will provide up to US$8 million in grants to finance regional public goods (RPGs) that are produced collectively by a group of IDB borrowing member countries.
Even though the initiative is open to the promotion of RPGs in any development area covered by the IDB, alignment with the IDB’s operational priorities is a selection criterion.
The other two selection criteria are the value added of a regional (vs national) approach to addressing a development challenge or opportunity, and the prospects of sustaining the benefits of regional collective action beyond the support of the Initiative.
The initiative is the bank’s most prominent grant instrument to support intra-regional cooperation and the collective design of development solutions in LAC. Demand for its resources has intensified in tandem with the increasing importance of multi or bilateral South-South cooperation (SSC) in the development agenda of most LAC countries.
The interest in SSC among the bank´s borrowing members is a reflection of the fact that the region is a source of innovative development solutions that can be shared and replicated by other countries in LAC and in other parts of the developing world.
Since 2004, the RPG initiative has financed 92 projects, investing a total of US$73 million in promoting RPGs. An additional 13 projects for US$10 million selected under the 2013 CFP are in the last stage of the approval process.
All proposals must be presented in accordance with the call for proposals guidelines and must be submitted online before April 24.
Meanwhile, in another initiative, the bank is urging Caribbean countries to participate in a project that would finance projects and research studies to improve financial and private sector development policies in the region. The IDB said on Monday that the deadline for receiving proposals for the initiative being undertaken in collaboration with the Spanish General Trust Fund is May 15.
Financial risk management
The IDB said that proposals should be for activities that fund specific interventions aimed at improving financial risk management in the agricultural sector in order to reduce price volatility, improve productive capacities and fiscal stability.
“These may include activities related to derivative market development, portfolio insurance, credit scoring techniques for rural and public banks, agricultural value chain financing schemes, among others,” it said noting that at least Euro 100,000 (US$131,237) would be provided for “activity grants” for implementation of activities that include impact evaluation methods and generate lessons learned.
The IDB said that research grants of Euro 20,000 (US$26,250) would go towards diagnostics, impact evaluations, comparative studies or case studies, and other applied research leading to policy recommendations.
“Projects will be evaluated on innovativeness, ability to generate and empirically document impact, and overall quality of the proposal. The IDB will publish the results of the MAP grants as part of its research publications. Ideally, activities and research grants will be implemented in less than one year,” it said.
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