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INTER-AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK FAULTS GUATEMALA AND ITSELF FOR A DECADE OF FAILED PROJECTS.

Article Excerpt
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has recently published its report Country Program Evaluation Guatemala 1993-2003. Although it covers a decade now two years gone, the publication date is April 2005. Scathing in its critique of the Guatemalan government's handling of IDB funds, the report has received little attention in the national media. The evaluation also ripped the bank's management.

The IDB currently has US$876.4 million in outstanding loans to Guatemala, representing, on average for the decade covered, 64% of all multilateral loans to the country. The loans were mainly for projects related to economic growth in the energy and financial sectors and in foreign-trade promotion. A smaller proportion went to social projects and about 4% to governance and state-reform projects.

The results of the evaluation constitute a devastating indictment of the government's handling of the funds. The 81-page report specifically mentions corruption only once, but the document is peppered with references to "irregularities," "governance complications," and "inefficient public spending." Of 19 projects studied, all were noted as at risk because of "unsatisfactory implementation progress," "improbable development outcomes," "defects in one or more of the underlying assumptions,"...

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