Inter-American Development Bank

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB or IADB) is an international development finance institution headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States. It serves as one of the leading sources of development financing for the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Established in 1959, the IDB supports Latin American and Caribbean economic, social, and institutional development and regional integration by lending to governments and sub-national agencies, developing new financial tools, creating enabling conditions for private-sector-led growth, convening and aligning countries around common interests, and bridging the region with the rest of the world.

The IDB also provides extensive technical assistance to its borrowing member countries. It works across a range of sectors, including infrastructure, health, education, energy, citizen security, environmental sustainability, trade, transportation, housing, and small businesses.

It works in conjunction with IDB Invest, which pursues development by supporting the region's private sector through lending, mobilization, and advisory services. IDB Lab is the Bank's entrepreneurial innovation and venture-capital arm.

At the First Pan-American Conference in 1890, the idea of a development institution for Latin America was first suggested during the earliest efforts to create an inter-American system. The IDB became a reality under an initiative proposed by President Juscelino Kubitschek of Brazil. The Bank was formally created on April 8, 1959, when the Organization of American States drafted the Articles of Agreement establishing the Inter-American Development Bank.

The IDB is one of the largest multilateral sources of financing for the Latin America and the Caribbean region. The IDB provides loans to borrowing member countries at standard commercial rates of interest, and has preferred creditor status, meaning that borrowers will repay loans to the IDB before repaying other obligations to other lenders such as commercial banks.

The IDB has four official languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. Its official names in the other three languages are as follows:

The IDB is governed by its Board of Governors, composed of representatives of the Bank's 48 member countries. The Governors are usually finance ministers or other senior economic officials. The Board gathers at an Annual Meeting in March or April to review the Bank’s operations and make major policy decisions.

The developing countries that borrow from the IDB are the majority shareholders, and therefore control the majority of the decision-making bodies of the Bank. Each member's voting power is determined by its shareholding: its subscription to the Bank's ordinary capital. The United States holds 30 percent of the Bank's shares, while the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean combined hold 50.02 percent, with another 20% held by member countries in Europe and Asia. This arrangement is unique in that the developing member countries, as a group, are the majority shareholders. Though this arrangement was first viewed as risky, it is believed by some that strict peer pressure prevents the borrowers from defaulting, even when under severe economic pressure.