The Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) has reiterated its support for strategic projects of the Government of El Salvador and announced, as part of its first actions, the funding of credits for education and infrastructure resilient to climate change.

The announcement was made at a press conference in which the Minister of Finance, Alejandro Zelaya, introduced CAF’s new representative for El Salvador, Óscar Avalle, who took office on August 16 and became the first flag-bearer of finance in Central America.

In his speech, Avalle stated that this week he completed a bank mission in which he identified financing options for the start of operations scheduled for this year.

In this regard, he reported that one of the missions aimed at developing a scheme to support the implementation of the country’s education digitization, for which funding of $150 million will be sought.While, as a second action, he affirmed that the CAF will contribute $75 million for resilient infrastructure against climate change, as well as one more operation in the fight against the effects of COVID-19, without specifying the amount.

“These are the three operations that we are working on at the moment and that we are going to have ready by the end of the year. The objective of the development bank of Latin America is to seek sustainable development,” added Avalle.

Regarding El Salvador’s entry into CAF, Óscar Avalle stated that: “In my professional career I have not seen a process that has taken us to the point where we are today, with such speed, effectiveness, efficiency, and commitment to the development of the population of a country.” He emphasized.

For his part, Minister Alejandro Zelaya stated that CAF’s new representative will be in charge of structuring relations between the development bank and the government and that, as El Salvador announced, the multilateral agency will open an office with national representation and foreign personnel that will help coordinate joint operations.

“In December 2021, El Salvador announced its intention to become a full member of the CAF, a historic decision for the country because after 60 years of not joining a multilateral financial organization, we are doing it again (…). It has been a process quickly, before a year we are completing the process for the first operations.” added the head of the Treasury.