Building Strong Partnerships at the Inter-American Development Bank

Building Strong Partnerships at the Inter-American Development Bank details the development of the bank's new Office of Outreach Partnerships to sustain a culture of innovation through maintaining and generating partnerships in order to fulfill the bank's greater mission of providing multilateral development financing as well as non-financial technical support and expertise for the Latin American and Caribbean region. At the time the case takes place, the Latin American and Caribbean region had seen changes such as expansion of the middle class, emergence of a new business class, and integration with foreign trade. Additionally, the region had faced challenges such as poverty, education, productivity, and infrastructure in both small and medium enterprises. Finally, new actors had entered the region such as governments, corporations, foundations, academic institutions, and NGO's to take a supporting role. In response, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) had created the Office of Outreach and Partnerships (ORP) as a dedicated team to lead strategic collaboration and interactions with a long-term vision for partnerships and innovation. The case portrays key questions concerning how the partnership process was formalized through the development of ORP, and what innovations these new partnerships would bring to the bank. Three example partnerships are detailed including The Coca-Cola Company, The Salud Mesoamerica 2015 Initiative, and PepsiCo. The case concludes by positing questions the ORP would face moving forward such as incentives, metrics, restructuring to serve the private sector, and mechanisms for working with a new set of partners.