The Extraordinary Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) elected Ilan Goldfajn of Brazil as its new president on Sunday.
The meeting was held at IDB headquarters in Washington, D.C., where delegates who participated in person and by videoconference elected Goldfajn for a five-year term.
Goldfajn will be responsible for the operations and administration of the Bank, which works with the public sector in Latin America and the Caribbean. He will also chair the IDB’s Board of Executive Directors and the Board of Executive Directors of IDB Invest, which works with the region’s private sector. The president will also lead the Donor Committee of IDB Lab, the Bank’s laboratory for innovative development projects.
The Brazilian has won a majority of votes from IDB member countries, as well as the support of at least 15 of the 28 regional member countries (26 borrowing member countries, plus Canada and the United States). The IDB has a total of 48 member countries and offices in all borrowing countries, as well as in Europe and Asia.
The Board of Governors is the Bank’s highest authority. Each member country appoints a Governor, whose voting power is proportional to the Bank’s capital subscribed by his or her country. Governors are usually finance ministers, central bank presidents or other authorities.
The Board of Governors holds annual meetings to review the Bank’s operations and make key decisions. Occasionally, it also holds extraordinary meetings, including the election of a president.
Goldfajn will be the IDB’s seventh president after Honduras’ Reina Irene Mejía Chacón (2022); the United States’ Mauricio Claver-Carone (2020-2022); Colombia’s Luis Alberto Moreno (2005-2020); Spain’s Enrique V. Iglesias (1988-2005); Mexico’s Antonio Ortiz Mena (1971-1988) and Chile’s Felipe Herrera (1960-1971).
