Posts Tagged ‘latin america’

Posted on May 4, 2009 - by Gavin

Obama off to good start in Latin America…

Miami Herald

Among the important accomplishments by President Barack Obama in his first 100 days has been a major step forward in U.S. relations with our neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Obama’s early meetings with Brazil’s President Lula da Silva and with President Felipe Calderón of Mexico went well, and he accomplished his objectives at the Fifth Summit of the Americas. He conveyed an attractive approach to Latin America that is consistent with his overall worldview: confident, open, genuinely interested in consultation but also committed to expressing U.S. objectives and ready to move away from unilateralism and presumption without being defensive.

The substance and style of his prepared address, his informal comments and his banter and body language, as well as his thoughtful remarks at the final press conference, were all positively received.

Courtesy paid off

The improvement in the atmospherics of official U.S.-Latin America relations is stunning. Criticism voiced by Newt Gingrich and others about Obama’s supposed weakness in exchanging friendly smiles and a handshake with Hugo Chávez, in welcoming expressed openness to Raúl Castro and in reassuring Bolivia’s Evo Morales that the United States will not support the violent overthrow of his government are frozen in outmoded stances from the folks who invented the ”axis of evil.” As a well-known Latin-American saying puts it, “courtesy does not weaken courage.” (more…)

Posted on May 4, 2009 - by Gavin

ACCION International Awarded IDB Prize for Latin American Development…

BOSTON – ACCION

International, a pioneer and leader in microfinance, today announced that it has been awarded the Inter-American Development Bank’s “Juscelino Kubitschek Award” for its contributions to economic and financial development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

ACCION was recognized by the IDB specifically for its work in microfinance — the provision of small, working-capital loans, savings products and other financial tools designed to help people work their way out of poverty with dignity and pride.

Created to mark the 50th anniversary of the IDB’s founding, the award drew nominations from 145 organizations representing 22 countries in the Americas and Europe. It is the largest award granted by a multilateral institution in Latin American and the Caribbean, and carries with it a prize of $100,000.

According to the IDB, ACCION was selected for the magnitude of its social impact in the region, which began in Latin America in 1961 with community-development projects in Venezuela. ACCION first experimented with microlending in Recife, Brazil as early as 1973. (more…)

Posted on April 20, 2009 - by Gavin

Obama Steers Between Dueling Critics in Latin American Outreach…

Bloomberg.com

April 20 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama returns from a four-day Latin American trip to face Republican criticism that he went too far in reaching out to critics like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and lingering complaints from regional leaders he didn’t go far enough to change U.S. policies.

Obama sought to thread a needle during the Summit of the Americas, which ended yesterday, by trying to open an avenue for relations with long-time regional adversaries like Chavez without retreating from core U.S. positions such as a demand for democratic change in Cuba.

The president proclaimed his approach a success at the end of the summit, even if others were less certain.

“The test for all of us is not only words, but also deeds,” Obama said at a news conference in Port of Spain, Trinidad. “What we showed here is that we can make progress when we are willing to break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate.”

Obama’s remarks reflected an approach to international relations that he previewed earlier this month in meetings with European leaders: a willingness to acknowledge where past policies have gone wrong — which he says allows the U.S. “to speak with greater moral force and clarity” — while telling nations they should no longer make his country a scapegoat for their own failings. (more…)

Posted on April 16, 2009 - by Gavin

Deals Help China Expand Its Sway in Latin America…

The New York Times

CARACAS, Venezuela — As Washington tries to rebuild its strained relationships in Latin America, China is stepping in vigorously, offering countries across the region large amounts of money while they struggle with sharply slowing economies, a plunge in commodity prices and restricted access to credit. In recent weeks, China has been negotiating deals to double a development fund in Venezuela to $12 billion, lend Ecuador at least $1 billion to build a hydroelectric plant, provide Argentina with access to more than $10 billion in Chinese currency and lend Brazil’s national oil company $10 billion. The deals largely focus on China locking in natural resources like oil for years to come.

China’s trade with Latin America has grown quickly this decade, making it the region’s second largest trading partner after the United States. But the size and scope of these loans point to a deeper engagement with Latin America at a time when the Obama administration is starting to address the erosion of Washington’s influence in the hemisphere.

“This is how the balance of power shifts quietly during times of crisis,” said David Rothkopf, a former Commerce Department official in the Clinton administration. “The loans are an example of the checkbook power in the world moving to new places, with the Chinese becoming more active.” (more…)

Posted on April 16, 2009 - by Gavin

Obama Puts Focus on Latin America…

The Wall Street Journal

President Obama will visit Latin America this week to reassure the region it will have a place in U.S. foreign policy, visiting Mexico and attending a regional summit in Trinidad and Tobago to take up issues including drug-related violence, the global economic crisis and U.S. policy toward Cuba. But the big question is whether the president can deliver much beyond goodwill.

“We want to correct the perception coming up from the South that in recent years the United States has turned its attention elsewhere,” said Jeffrey Davidow, Mr. Obama’s special adviser for the 34-nation Summit of the Americas, which will be held Friday and Saturday.

This week, for example, the Obama administration signaled a new approach to Cuba by easing restrictions on travel to the Communist island by Cuban-Americans and allowing U.S. telecommunications companies to create links with the country. However, Mr. Obama may be hard pressed to deliver concrete results from the trip. For instance, he is likely to stress the need to protect the region’s poorest citizens from the global economic crisis, but may have little to offer beyond multilateral assistance already agreed upon at the recent Group of 20 nations meeting in London. (more…)

Posted on March 12, 2009 - by Gavin

State intervention key to getting more people out of poverty — WB…

Business World Online

GOVERNMENTS should give the poor better access to economic opportunities and ensure that democratic institutions are working if it wants to liberate more citizens from poverty, a book the World Bank released yesterday said.

In the 341-page book, entitled: Moving Out of Poverty: Success from Bottom Up, written by Deepa Narayan, Lant Pritchett and Soumya Kapoor, the World Bank said while some managed to move out of poverty on their own, government interventions to provide preferential opportunities to the poor would hasten this process for more of the disadvantaged.

“The grain of truth is that the poor do face an uphill struggle as they grapple with markets that are, at best, indifferent and at worst deliberately rigged against them. Lacking assets, connections, access, and sometimes business expertise, poor people often have great difficulty riding market forces out of poverty,” the study said.

“Most people living in poverty take initiative to change their conditions, and most are confident that, with hard work they will prevailBut their initiatives often come up against blocked opportunities, whether in the context of rigged markets or local democracies captured by the elite.” (more…)

Posted on March 12, 2009 - by Gavin

MICROCAPITAL STORY: Expanding Microfinancing in Latin America…

Microcapital

In his article, Jonathan Wheatley FT reports that now as the global banking system sinks into its worst crisis since the 1930s, there is a resurgence of interest in microfinance among Latin American banks. Several articles and papers have reported on this up and coming trend.

Since the early 1970’s, Latin America has been a pioneer in microfinance. Today, it has some of the highest penetration rates in the world. According to a bench mark report on Latin American microfinancing created by MIX Market, the microfinance information clearinghouse, “Latin America is home to some of the most experienced, diverse and developed microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the world.”

The Economist Intelligence Unit, a leading research and advisory firm founded in 1946, reported that Peru, based on regulatory framework, the investment climate and institutional development, has a business environment ripe for microfinance. The picture across Latin America, however, is far from even.

While Latin American does have some of the highest penetration rates in the world, these rates differ significantly from country to country. According to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which is the private finance arm of the World Bank, penetration of microfinance in Brazil and Argentina is about three percent, meaning that for every 100 microenterprises eligible for microfinance products, only three are served. (more…)

Posted on October 24, 2008 - by lincolnw

Remittances to Latin America Decline as Global Economy Sours

The amount of money sent home to families in Latin American countries by relatives living abroad is projected to grow by its slowest rate on record this year, according to a report to be released today by the Washington bank that tracks such transfers.

A slowdown would not only potentially exacerbate poverty in home countries but is also an indication of the economic troubles facing Latin American immigrants in the United States and elsewhere, according to the Inter-American Development Bank…{click this link to read the rest of the article}

Posted on October 22, 2008 - by lincolnw

Andean countries boast best business climate for microfinance, according to index

ASUNCION, Paraguay – Peru has the best business conditions for microfinance in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the results of the Microscope index presented today by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF) and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

The EIU, a specialized service of the prestigious magazine The Economist, developed the Microscope index last year with support from the IDB’s Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) and CAF. The index consists of a scorecard that weighs factors such as the investment climate, the development of public institutions and the regulatory frameworks for microfinance in 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The results of this year’s study, which was broadened to include more countries and deepened to survey more experts and practitioners, were discussed at the Microenterprise Forum organized by the MIF and the Paraguayan government, October 8-10…{click this link to read the rest of the article}

Posted on October 15, 2008 - by lincolnw

Remittances and Microfinance 2008

Remittances, the portion of international migrant workers’ earnings sent back from the country of employment to the country of origin, play an important role in the economies of many developing countries. An annual statistical report done by the World Bank shows that remittances account for 5% of the GDP for low-income developing countries as of 2006. Although this figure might seem small, many countries in particular have a much higher percentage of their GDP based in Remittances; Guyana, Haiti and Honduras are all close to 25%.  The Philippines, Nicaragua, Nepal, Guatemala and El Salvador are all in the 10-20% range. Jack Kimball of Reuters points out that “remittance cash may be as much as 50 percent higher than current estimates due to informal transfers.” Global remittances from foreign workers make up an estimated $300 billion a year, three times as much as the foreign aid paid out by governments in the developed world…{click here to read the rest of this article}