Development bank seeks new approach to Latin America’s problems
Monday, June 26, 2006
Excerpt: With leftist politicians on the rise throughout Latin America, Washington policymakers are turning their sights on the left-behind majorities fueling the populist surge.
It is the latest struggle for the hearts and minds of people in a region swept first by free market reforms favored by the U.S. government and now buffeted by a shift to more home-grown policies that sometimes fly in the face of the United States.
Sensing a seismic shift in South American sentiment, the Inter-American Development Bank recently unfurled a major initiative in Washington, D.C. to respond to the growing needs of the region’s people.
Under the banner ’’Building Opportunity for the Majority,’’ the IDB recently lined up a series of luminaries — from the cardinal of Honduras to Latin America’s richest man to former President Bill Clinton — to discuss the Achilles’ heel of recent policies: the persistence of poverty.
