Colombian Sergio Díaz-Granados has been elected CAF’s next president

the Latin American Development Bank (CAF) elected this Monday the Colombian Sergio Díaz-Granados like his new CEO during a vote in which the Argentine candidate won, Christian Asinelli, who will ultimately be the entity’s vice-president. The vote ended 17-0 (Venezuela, which has two votes, abstained) following the agreement reached by the candidates.

The election took place in a Private mixed meeting at the National Palace of Mexico, seat of the Mexican government and residence of the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, months after the resignation of the Peruvian president Luis Carranza.

CAF, whose initials correspond to its former name of Andean Development Company, is an organization made up of 19 shareholder countries (17 Latin Americans, plus Spain and Portugal, and 13 private banks), based in Caracas and in charge of financing development projects and promoting regional integration in Latin America.

Díaz-Granados (Santa Marta, 1968), former Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism of Colombia between 2010 and 2013, is the current Executive Director for Colombia with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), while Asinelli is the undersecretary of international financial relations for development in the government of Alberto Fernández.

The next president of CAF, considered the second development bank in the region after the IDB, I needed at least 10 votes and he will be re-eligible within five years.

Díaz-Granados came to the elections with the explicit support from countries like Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Uruguay. For its part, the candidacy of Asinelli had the announced support of countries like Bolivia, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic or Portugal.

During its 51 years of existence, this Development Bank, little known to the general public, has become, with the IDB, a key financial player for the development of the region. And now, the lesson of its president has become key, since it will be he who will decide the role that CAF will play in the economic recovery and in the development of the region after the pandemic.

The Latin American Development Bank is generally not the center of attention in the Southern Cone due to its Andean DNA. However, this process of renewal of authorities is going through a curious upheaval and a series of movements across the region that began when Peruvian Luis Carranza submitted his resignation due to accusations of harassment at work. Since then, CAF has been in the hands of a trainee.

Carranza criticized the fact that the CAF board did not support the appointment of Bernardo Requena as president of the national programs and denounced that the directors of Argentina asked him to appoint a person as vice -President, whose identity he has not revealed, who “I didn’t qualify for the job.”

During the administration of Carranza, charges of mass dismissals and harassment at work against him, as reported by Alejandra Claros, former coordinator of the organization’s secretariat.

Of Peruvian nationality, Luis Carranza Ugarte was elected by large majority as executive president of CAF at an extraordinary meeting of the institution’s board of directors on December 13, 2016. Carranza has been Peru’s Minister of Economy and Finance twice, as well as a prominent economist who worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

(With information from EFE and AFP)

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