Guatemala City, 17 March 2007: Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the Inter-American Bank (IDB), signed a statement of principle today with the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD) to initiate a new program to provide the necessary technical assistance to promote and implement property rights,

business and market system reforms in several Latin American countries and to disseminate the lessons learned.

Under this agreement, the ILD will begin preliminary projects in five countries: Haiti, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Panama. Over the next two years, the Bank’s Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) will provide grants to these countries that will enable them to draw upon ILD expertise in formulating action plans, strengthening institutional capacity and training teams of local professionals in the kind of research, reform design, and implementation skills to execute a national transition process to an inclusive, market economy. Once the initial work has been carried out, the participating countries can apply for IDB loans to finance full-scale transition programs, under ILD supervision.