The Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group) has launched the South Connection regional program to enhance connectivity and competitiveness across South America, aiming to foster sustainable economic growth. The initiative responds to long-standing structural challenges in the region, including high trade costs, fragmented regulations, weak transportation and digital infrastructure, limited energy connectivity, low investment levels, and underdeveloped trade in services. These barriers have hindered regional integration and constrained opportunities for private-sector-led growth.
South Connection provides a strategic, regional approach to tackle these challenges. By investing in resilient physical, digital, and energy infrastructure, the program seeks to reinforce regional cooperation, streamline trade, and create new avenues for employment and economic development. The initiative complements the IDB Group’s other regional programs, including Amazonia Forever, América en el Centro, and ONE Caribbean, reflecting the integration-focused vision of the Group’s Institutional Strategy, IDBStrategy+.
The program is structured around three key pillars. The first pillar focuses on enhancing physical and digital connectivity through the modernization of climate-resilient roads, ports, waterways, power grids, and digital infrastructure. The second pillar aims to optimize logistics and trade facilitation by improving border operations, streamlining customs procedures, supporting binational logistics hubs, and deploying data-exchange tools. The third pillar strengthens institutional and regulatory capacities by promoting regulatory convergence aligned with global standards, encouraging investment, and improving governance.
Resources for South Connection will be mobilized across the IDB Group. IDB will provide sovereign-guaranteed operations, technical assistance, and knowledge-sharing support, while IDB Invest will drive private-sector participation and help structure high-impact projects. IDB Lab will foster innovation and ecosystem development. The program also emphasizes collaboration with other multilateral institutions and donors, promoting public-private partnership frameworks to attract private investment and maximize value in infrastructure projects. Environmental and social sustainability is a cross-cutting principle in all projects, ensuring compliance with standards and active engagement of local communities.
