The Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group) has launched LAC Crece, a new platform designed to accelerate private-sector-led growth in Latin America and the Caribbean by aligning public policies with private investment. The initiative aims to unlock productivity, create jobs, and boost long-term economic growth by turning development priorities into sequenced, practical, and financed actions.
The launch comes in response to the region’s long-standing growth challenges. Over the past six decades, Latin America and the Caribbean grew at an average annual rate of only 1.8%, far behind East Asia, where economies expanded at more than three times that pace. This widening gap has contributed to slower development in a region that was once ahead of or comparable to many economies that have since advanced much faster.
IDB Group President Ilan Goldfajn stressed that stronger private-sector participation is essential because public resources alone are not enough to deliver the scale and speed of growth the region needs. He highlighted that governments should focus on reforms, stronger regulations, enabling infrastructure, and removing barriers to investment, while the private sector should drive capital flows and productivity gains that support job creation, poverty reduction, and sustainable development.
LAC Crece is designed to address the practical barriers that often delay or discourage investment. It helps governments identify obstacles such as regulatory bottlenecks, permitting delays, and institutional weaknesses, then organizes reforms, infrastructure investments, and financing tools in a coordinated way so that projects and businesses can move forward more quickly.
The platform brings together the full range of IDB Group support. Sovereign lending from the IDB is used to support reforms and improve the conditions needed for private investment, while IDB Invest provides financing to expand private-sector activity in key sectors. At the same time, IDB Lab supports startups and entrepreneurs that contribute to innovation and new economic opportunities.
The IDB Group is already applying this approach in countries such as El Salvador and Bolivia, where it is working to remove investment barriers, and is beginning similar efforts in the Dominican Republic and Ecuador. LAC Crece is intended to complement the IDB’s existing country strategies by emphasizing sequencing, coordination, and execution, helping governments prioritize the reforms and investments that can attract private capital more effectively and deliver results sooner.
