IDB calls for addressing post-pandemic investment opportunities
Washington, Dec 10 (EFE).- The Covid-19 pandemic has generated a large number of social and economic challenges, but also investment opportunities that require collaboration between the public and private sectors, the head of the private investment arm of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) said in an interview with EFE.
BID Invest General Manager James Scriven explained that the Latin American and Caribbean region has suffered “disproportionately from the pandemic,” so there are health, economic and social challenges that represent “a unique opportunity to invest” and build a “green and sustainable recovery.”
Scriven spoke to EFE during the PPP Americas Forum that began on Thursday in Sao Paulo (Brazil) to discuss public-private partnership models to advance investment for sustainable development in Latin America.
PPPs are “an innovative financial tool” that “allows the public sector to connect with the private sector” and that will be fundamental for “the sustainable recovery of the post-pandemic economy,” the IDB Invest executive said.
Scriven believes that “the private sector has the necessary tools and discipline to develop and manage, build and operate complex infrastructures,” but added that “there is little fiscal space for governments to develop the sector, which is much more focused on immediate reactivation or alleviating the effect of the pandemic.”
“We feel that several governments are not investing what they should be investing in the infrastructure sector, and that complementarity can come from the private sector, which has been a pioneer in innovative instruments,” said Scriven.
IDB Invest manages a budget of some 13 billion dollars, 40 percent of which is invested in infrastructure, mostly PPPs, and above all in transportation, but also in the development of sustainable energy, education, access to water and, especially now with the pandemic, in health. EFE
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