• On Human Rights Day, IDB Invest renews its commitment to uphold human rights in the projects it finances supporting development in Latin America and the Caribbean through the private sector.

As the world confronts the COVID-19 crisis, there is a pressing need to double efforts and seek collaborative action to prevent deepening poverty, rising inequalities, structural and entrenched discrimination, and other gaps in human rights protection.

IDB Invest is fully committed to supporting measures that advance human rights and that provide people in Latin America and the Caribbean the opportunity to recover from this health crisis, irrespective of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, language, religion, political or other opinions, and build back a world that is better, more resilient, just and sustainable.

To contribute to a post-COVID world that is better for present and future generations, IDB Invest has significantly increased its lending capacity to support interventions that alleviate healthcare constraints, maintain jobs, restore supply chains and sustain sources of income, especially for micro, small and medium enterprises.

These additional financial resources are backed by IDB Invest’s renewed commitment to upholding international best practices in the context of all social and environmental aspects of the projects it finances, including human rights. This renewed commitment is supported by IDB Invest’s new Sustainability Framework, composed of our new Access to Information Policy and Environmental and Social Sustainability Policy approved in April 2019 and 2020, respectively.

The new Access to Information Policy reaffirms IDB Invest's commitment to transparency in the exercise of its activities, making explicit reference to the recognition and exercise of the right to access information as a fundamental human right. Providing clear and accurate information to those potentially affected by a project, particularly the most vulnerable, and protecting the identity of information requesters, whistleblowers, and human rights defenders from possible reprisals is central to our approach.

Through its new Environmental and Social Sustainability Policy (Sustainability Policy), IDB Invest promotes the responsibility of business to respect human rights. To that end, IDB Invest requires its clients to have in place an approach to assess potential human rights risks and impacts, respect human rights, avoid infringement on the human rights of others, and address adverse human rights risks and impacts in IDB Invest supported projects. The new policy includes increased focus on fostering full respect for the human rights, dignity, aspirations, culture, and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, and other vulnerable groups. Additional protections have been put in place for Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation or in initial contact.

Through its new Sustainability Framework, IDB Invest strives to accelerate actions to promote sustainable development for the people of Latin America and the Caribbean and to a post-COVID-19 recovery that leaves no one behind.