Bank deserves more interest

Much like the world bank at a global level, the Inter-American Development Bank is an important institution in this hemisphere, providing loans for social and economic development projects. It’s a shame leaders of greater stature -- people like former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo -- don’t seem interested in leading the bank and giving it a higher profile.

The bank has had only three presidents in its 46-year history, and Wednesday its 47 member nations will meet to pick a fourth, who will succeed Enrique Iglesias of Uruguay. The new IDB head must be supported by more than half of the bank’s voting shares and at least 15 of 28 member countries in the hemisphere. The 26 borrowing members from Latin America and the Caribbean hold 50.02% of the bank’s capital and voting power. The U.S. holds a third.

Among those vying for the job, Luis Alberto Moreno, Colombia’s ambassador to the United States since 1998, is the strongest candidate. Prior to coming to Washington, he had been a TV journalist, president of the government’s industrial finance corporation and then minister of economic development. Moreno is at once thoughtful and charismatic, and he has earned the respect of many in Washington for his deftness in trade negotiations and in promoting President Alvaro Uribe’s Plan Colombia, the government’s anti-guerrilla strategy.

Colombia, a democracy with a rich civil society and a bedeviling history of violence, is itself a microcosm of the Latin American story. Bogota has also pursued sound economic and fiscal policies, which bolsters Moreno’s claim to the job.

The other candidates include Joao Sayad, a Brazilian vice president of the IDB; Peru’s respected economy minister, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski; and Venezuela’s former finance minister, Jose Alejandro Rojas.

Moreno is a solid choice to run the bank, though it would be preferable to have a respected household name in the mix, someone who could instantly command moral authority when advising finance ministers and central banks. Moreno would have to acquire that stature on the job; the good news is that he seems capable of doing just that.