Still on the Drawing Board: the Banco del Sur a Half Year Later
COHA and the history of the Argentine human rights situation
COHA Director Larry Birns was recently mentioned in Hugo Alconada Mon’s article, “Piden desclasificar los archivos sobre los desaparecidos,” in La Nación. The article may be accessed by clicking on the following link:
http://www.lanacion.com/ar/politica/nota.asp?nota_id=1013271
• In the wake of the third summit of heads of state for the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the newest development is the creation of a South American Defense Council. One question still in the air, however, is what happened to the Banco del Sur, the South American development bank that was so heavily hyped a half year ago?
• The Banco del Sur may become an important actor throughout the continent, but for this to happen its members first need to agree on the subscribed capital upon which it will be levied.
• Once the bank’s capital subscription is decided, future challenges await: How to allocate the voting shares distribution and how to achieve high quality portfolios and credit ratings.
In December 2007, presidents from seven of the thirteen South American countries met in Argentina to create the Banco del Sur, a development bank originally advocated by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez as a substitute for international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF )and the World Bank. However, as the Banco del Sur is still on the drawing board and its purpose still debated, the only relatively fixed points are the countries which have agreed to be members: the leftists Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, and the moderate left-leaning Mercosur countries, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The question at hand is whether the newborn Banco del Sur will be able to live up to the challenges of running a successful sub-regional development bank while still making a coherent and strong ideological statement.
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