Since becoming president of the Inter-American Development Bank in October 2005, Luis Alberto Moreno (below) has appointed new managers, updated the bank's lending policies and restructured the institution. Q Is the ultimate aim of the Inter-American Develop-ment Bank (IDB)'s recent reforms to make itself more relevant to its clients? After all, IDB borrowers in Latin America now have other sources of development finance, with investments by China and India, large earnings from high-priced commodity exports, and the inauguration of the Bank of the South last December by seven Latin American presidents. A We want the IDB to be more relevant and proof of this is last year's lending of more than $9bn. In no other year in the bank's history have we had this level of lending without emergency assistance. At the same time [last year], we began focusing on issues related to climate change and sustainable development, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and [also] continued programmes in traditional social areas, such as education, and water and sanitation in basic infrastructure.
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