I.D.B. Holds 36th Meeting of Regional Governors in Belize

The thirty-sixth annual meeting of the Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank member countries in Central America and the Dominican Republic concluded today in San Pedro.  In his inaugural meeting with governors of this region, I.D.B. President Ilan Goldfajn, (pronounced Ih-laan Gold-fahn), shared his idea for expanding the bank’s contribution to their countries development.  He also heard their perspective on the priorities that should guide I.D.B.’s agenda in the years ahead.  Prime Minister John Briceño addressed the gathering of I.D.B. governors this morning.

Prime Minister John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño

“We are pleased to be able to host the IDB and the Board of Governors for Central America which includes also the Dominican Republic.  For us it’s an important meeting where we are trying, where we are planning for the next years to come.  As you know, there is a new president for the IDB, Mr. Goldfajn, and Mr. Goldfajn has come in to present his vision and his vision is to be able to have an IDB that’s more agile, that’s more nimble that can be able to address the issues that are confronting us, the social issues such as poverty, climate change and infrastructure development.  These three themes are very important to Belize, we have an issue with poverty where when we get into government, poverty is over fifty-two percent.  That is going down.  We have to address the issue of crime in Belize and working with the gangs and see how we can get them away from that kind of life to a more productive life.  That is why we are asked to continue to invest heavily in education.  Climate change; well, we all know about it, we live climate change.  Everyday we have hurricanes, we have droughts, we have too much rains, we have flooding and these are issues that we have to be able to address every single day and see how we can now be able to have more climate resiliency, be it in infrastructure, be it in agriculture, be it in tourism.  It is real, it is here and we want to be able to address these issues head-on.  We’re excited about the new vision of the president of the IDB and so, as a region, Central America which includes Belize and the Dominican Republic, now we want to come up with what are our main issues?  How is it that we can get the IDB to listen to us and to be able to respond quicker.”