A Devex newsmaker event

Shaping growth in Latin America: A conversation with Luis Alberto Moreno

October 5, 2021 — 12 p.m. ET | 6 p.m. CET

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About the Event

In a world hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, one region has arguably fared worst: Latin America. While Latin America is a large and diverse region, people across countries have uniformly faced bad outcomes. Latin America has some of the worst mortality rates from the pandemic itself and among the worst economic contractions from the global slowdown and lockdown measures. Millions of people across the region have been pushed into poverty, crime and violence continue to plague several countries, corruption and political instability are immediate challenges, and there are three full blown humanitarian crises — in Venezuela, Haiti, and Central America.

Against this bleak backdrop, what are committed humanitarians, development agencies, and international organizations to do? In a special series of Devex Newsmaker conversations, we will explore both the underlying causes of the recent setbacks across the region and, importantly, what can be done to support national and community-led efforts to imagine a new future for the region.

These conversations will include three exemplary leaders uniquely placed to address these questions. Luis Alberto Moreno served for 15 years as the president of the Inter-American Development Bank until stepping down last year and is among Latin America’s most prominent leaders on the global stage. Roberta Jacobson was the United States ambassador to Mexico, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, and just this year served President Joe Biden in managing the migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border. In addition to holding a number of key government roles in Mexico’s finance ministry, Santiago Levy is globally recognized as the architect of Mexico’s noted incentive-based health, education, and nutrition program for the poor, and is one of the region’s most prominent development analysts.

Watch this conversation moderated by Devex President & Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar on Latin America’s post-pandemic future with Luis Alberto Moreno.

Speakers

Tania Karas

Senior Editor, Devex

Tania Karas is a Senior Editor at Devex, where she edits coverage on global development and humanitarian aid in the Americas. Previously, she managed the digital team for The World, where she oversaw content production for the website, podcast, newsletter, and social media platforms. Tania also spent three years as a foreign correspondent in Greece, Turkey, and Lebanon, covering the Syrian refugee crisis and European politics. She started her career as a staff reporter for the New York Law Journal, covering immigration and access to justice.

Raj Kumar

President and Editor-in-Chief, Devex

Raj Kumar is a media leader and former humanitarian council chair for the World Economic Forum and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of the book "The Business of Changing the World," a go-to primer on the ideas, people, and technology disrupting the aid industry.

Luis Alberto Moreno

Former President, Inter-American Development Bank

A Colombian citizen, Luis Alberto Moreno recently joined Allen & Company LLC serving as Managing Director. In 2020, Moreno concluded his 15-year tenure as the President of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB), elected in 2005, and re-elected in 2010 and 2015. There he led a profound transformation of the organization while also chairing the Board of Executive Directors of IDB Invest, the Group’s private sector arm, as well as the Donors Committee at IDB Lab, an innovation laboratory for development to test and scale up ideas that improve human lives. Under Moreno’s leadership, the IDB Group — owned by 48 member countries — consolidated its role as the leading and principal source of long-term financing for La:n America and the Caribbean, while providing cutting-edge knowledge and technical advice for social, economic and institutional development.

Sabrina Stein

Senior Program Analyst for Advocacy, Latin America Program, Open Society Foundations

Sabrina Stein joined the Open Society Foundations in 2019 and currently serves as a Senior Program Analyst for Advocacy in the Latin America Program. Previously, Sabrina worked at the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum (CPPF), a program of the Social Science Research Council. Her work included managing initiatives that helped strengthen the knowledge base and analytic capacity of the UN community in the fields of conflict prevention, conflict management, and peacekeeping. She was born and raised in Uruguay.