The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and Inter-American Development Bank’s Multilaterial Investment Fund (IDB – MIF) have joined hands to establish a partnership trust fund to support innovative projects for poverty reduction in Latin America. AusAID will contribute A$10 million (approximately US$10.2 million) for this trust fund. MIF will also contribute the same amount to this fund.
On the priority list of this fund will be poorest countries of Latin America. Technical assistance grants from the trust fund will focus on financial inclusion projects that help historically disadvantaged populations and other groups lacking access to tools to overcome poverty, such as financial services, skills training, effective farming technologies or basic services.
AusAID was established in 1974 and today manages the Australian Government’s overseas aid program, which focuses on poverty reduction and sustainable development. AusAID’s operations are strongly focused in the Asia-Pacific region, but also extend to Africa and more recently to Latin America. Commencing in 2009, AusAID’s first operation in Latin America was to support a program with the MIF to provide business training to 100,000 women microentrepreneurs in Peru.
The MIF, a member of the IDB Group, promotes poverty reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean through private sector development, with an emphasis on microenterprises and small businesses. Established in 1992, the MIF pioneered many of the innovations that led to the rapid growth of microfinance in this region.
