SINCE IT was founded in 1959, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has had just four presidents: a Chilean, a Mexican, a Uruguayan and, since 2005, Luis Alberto Moreno, a Colombian. Under the gentlemen's agreement by which it was founded, Latin America has the presidency and a small majority of the capital while the United States has the number-two job and some informal vetoes over how the bank is run. The idb has not been free of the faults of such institutions, such as bureaucracy and a degree of cronyism, but it has played an important role in the region. It lends around $12bn a year for infrastructure, health, education and so on, does some useful research and advises governments. It has also been a channel of communication between the two halves of the Americas.
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