Italy and IDB Group Open New Investment Path for Latin America and the Caribbean

The partnership establishes a cooperation facility to identify and prepare projects, mobilize investment, and build stronger business ties between Italy and the region.

A new agreement between the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group) and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), Italy's national promotional institution, is set to help turn project proposals across Latin America and the Caribbean into opportunities ready for investment. The partnership establishes a cooperation facility to identify and prepare projects, mobilize investment, and build stronger business ties between Italy and the region.

Helping Projects Reach the Financing Stage

The memorandum of understanding was signed on the sidelines of the 2026 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, setting out a framework for cooperation on public and private sector operations. Preparing a project for investment involves more than identifying a need for a road, an energy facility, or a water system; it requires a workable proposal and a financing structure that participating institutions can assess. The new facility brings project identification, preparation, and investment mobilization into the same cooperation framework, giving the partnership a role in the steps that connect an early proposal to a potential financing opportunity.

Support under the agreement may include co-financing, risk-sharing arrangements, blended-finance structures, and technical assistance. These approaches offer different ways to bring financing partners into a project, whether through shared funding, arrangements that distribute financial risks, or a combination of financing sources and terms. Technical assistance can support the preparation work needed before investment decisions are made. The agreement leaves room for these tools to support both public and private sector operations, with their use depending on the needs of individual projects.

Energy, Infrastructure and Food Security Take Focus

The partnership covers critical minerals, energy security, sustainable transport and logistics, water resource management, and resilient infrastructure, placing several essential economic systems within its scope. Cooperation in these areas could support projects concerned with how energy is supplied, how goods move, and how infrastructure responds to environmental pressures. Biodiversity, natural capital, agribusiness, and food security are included in the framework, extending its reach to the ecosystems and agricultural activities that support livelihoods and production across the region. This range gives the two institutions room to consider investment opportunities across interconnected sectors.

Building Business Connections Between Italy and the Region

Italian companies, technologies, goods, and services will be connected with projects and potential partners through BID for the Americas, the IDB Group program that promotes business opportunities and strengthens commercial ties between Latin America and the Caribbean and international partners. This part of the agreement gives businesses a route to explore where their expertise or products could fit regional project needs, making commercial connections part of the broader investment effort. The MoU builds on initial cooperation through IDB LAC Minerals, the IDB Group's regional platform for responsible mining and sustainable mineral value chains, and establishes a wider framework for collaboration between Italy and Latin America and the Caribbean.