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Brazil’s planning minister Simone Tebet. Credit: IDB Group

Brazilian planning minister Simone Tebet hailed Saturday the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) change of course towards more socially and environmentally-oriented financing while supporting badly needed investment in infrastructure.

“There is a real trend towards increasing investments that actually cause an impact in the region and among the people instead pulverizing resources,” she told LatinFinance. “We need to focus on what is essential to fight poverty, generate jobs and income, investments towards sustainability, and environmental conservation and climate change financing.”

Brazil is the IDB’s largest Latin American shareholder together with Argentina, each with a 11.5% stake in the bank.

One of the the IDB’s priorities amid its shift to sustainable investments is its Amazonia Forever program, focused on the conservation of the Amazonian forest, which extends across Brazil and eight other South American countries.

The IDB and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, which became a partner of the Amazonia Forever program in December, this week signed a guarantee partnership that increases the bank’s lending cap by $469 million. The signing took place during the bank’s annual meeting in Dominican Republic.

IDB president Ilan Goldfajn also suggested that countries use some of their SDRs deposited at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to finance climate change actions.

Tebet, who is Brazil’s governor at the IDB, has strongly endorsed the proposed $3.5-billion capital increase for IDB Invest, the bank’s private sector financing arm, which is due to be voted on Sunday. The extra capital will boost private investment in infrastructure, she said.

“It is going to reach the small and micro entrepreneurs, as well as female cooperatives. They are really focused on the poorest regions of each country, such as the north and the northeast in the case of our country,” said Tebet, a centrist politician who joined the leftwing government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last year.

She also welcomes the IDB’s support for efforts to integrate Brazil with the rest of South America and the Caribbean.

“The IDB starts a new stage, and a very significant change of course towards Latin American countries,” she said.

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