• During the meeting, the Latin American Regional Report on the Role of Public Development Banks (PDBs) in the Water Sector was presented.

February 17, 2022- The Latin American Association of Development Financing Institutions (ALIDE) participated in the fourth meeting of the Water Finance Coalition, led by the National Bank of Public Works and Services (Banobras) of Mexico and The Agence Française de Développement (AFD)

During his welcoming remarks, Edgardo Alvarez, general secretary of ALIDE, emphasized the importance of water in life and how pollution and the climate change have altered his cycle and generated resource scarcity. 

“The region’s water stress has fueled a number of conflicts as various sectors, including agriculture, hydropower, mining and even drinking water and sanitation, compete for scarce resources, said Alvarez.

Facing this problem and the need to meet Sustainable Development Goal 6, the general secretary of ALIDE said that development banks have an important role to play as financiers and operators of the service programs  in water, sanitation and water resources management.

After the welcome, Alice Colson and Olivier Crespi (AFD) commented on the Joint Statement on Financing Water and Sanitation made by the public development banks during the Finance in Common 2021 summit, presented the initiatives being worked on, and shared the coalition’s agenda, which includes the 9th World Water Forum in Dakar, Senegal.

During the roundtable, Stef Smits (IRC) presented the Latin American Regional Report on the role of Public Development Banks (PDBs) in the Water Sector.  This report was developed based on the national cases of BNB and BNDES in Brazil, BDE in Ecuador, Bandesal in El Salvador and Banobras in Mexico, and the international cases of FONPLATA, CABEI, NADBank, CAF and IDB.

Also, the discussion was attended by Laura Bedeschi, representative of BNDES; Carlos Carranza, representative of NADBank; and Franz Rojas, member of CAF. The three shared the experiences of their institutions working on investment projects for the water and sanitation sector.

About ALIDE

ALIDE is the community of financial institutions that generates banking solutions for the development of Latin America and the Caribbean. Founded in 1968, its main objective is to contribute to the economic and social development of the region, through the good practices in development financing that it promotes among its associates, about 90 institutions with a presence in more than 20 Latin American countries and other regions of the world.

About the Water Finance Coalition

The Water Finance Coalition is the coalition for water financing, launched from the Finance in Common summit, that gathers national and international public development banks to improve the financing of the water and sanitation sector and achieve the Paris Accord objectives, as well as Sustainable Development Goal number 6 and improve biodiversity protection.

Contact

Andrea Villafranca
Communications Unit of ALIDE
Phone: +511-203-5520 |: Ext: 227
comunicaciones@alide.org, comunicaciones2@alide.org
www.alide.org