CAF to invest USD $10 billion over the next five years to boost Latin American and Caribbean integration
The Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) has earmarked US$10 billion through 2031 for projects intended to deepen regional integration, with Caribbean countries expected to benefit from investments in connectivity, trade, energy, tourism, and food security.
CAF – Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean is one of the region’s largest multilateral development banks. It provides loans, grants, technical assistance, and advisory services to governments, state-owned entities, municipalities, and private-sector projects that promote sustainable economic development and regional integration.
The program, announced after CAF’s International Forum on Regional Integration in Cartagena, Colombia, will finance physical and digital infrastructure, intra-regional trade, logistics, mobility, innovation, and productive development. CAF said the investment is designed to improve connectivity, narrow socio-economic disparities, and strengthen the region’s competitiveness.
The funds will be used for infrastructure, digital connectivity, energy, tourism, logistics, and mobility projects, and will help close socioeconomic gaps, boost regional trade, and address the challenges of the new global geopolitical landscape.
The initiative could support improved transport links, stronger digital systems, trade facilitation, and more resilient energy and food security arrangements. CAF said it would also back projects aimed at strengthening value chains, advancing the energy transition, and creating opportunities for businesses and citizens across Latin America and the Caribbean.
CAF Executive President Sergio Díaz-Granados said integration had become “a development, competitiveness, and global positioning are imperative for Latin America and the Caribbean.”
He said countries would need to work more closely as geopolitical tensions, trade fragmentation, and financial volatility reshape global production and supply chains. According to CAF, deeper cooperation can help countries increase their participation in global value chains, protect strategic ecosystems, improve food security, and adapt to the changing international landscape.
“Integration is the answer to protecting our strategic ecosystems, creating jobs, addressing informality, and defending the democratic values that underpin our coexistence, freedom, and future,” DíazGranados said.
The Cartagena forum, held in May and organized by CAF, brought together government officials, multilateral agencies, and development partners. Caribbean participants included the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank Governor Timothy Antoine, CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General Ambassador Wayne McCook, Caribbean Development Bank Director of Economics Ian Durant, CCRIF’s Martín Portillo, and Barbados Museum & Historical Society Curator Natalie McGuire.
A major outcome was the signing of the Declaration on the Convergence of the Processes and Mechanisms of Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean by 15 regional institutions. The agreement calls for strategic coordination among the region’s many integration arrangements, aligning priorities, pooling institutional capabilities, reducing duplication, and improving collaboration.
Signatories included the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, the Organization of Ibero-American States, and the Latin American Energy Organization. CAF said the declaration reflected a push to shift integration from separate initiatives to a coherent framework that translates common priorities into projects.
The announcement came as CAF also expanded its response to a separate emergency in Venezuela. Following earthquakes on 24 June, the bank established a Venezuela Recovery and Reconstruction Fund with US $1 million in seed capital, in addition to US $300,000 in humanitarian assistance previously announced for emergency efforts.
The new US$ 10 billion commitment builds on CAF’s longstanding role in financing cross-border development. Over the past 30 years, the bank has approved 118 credit operations valued at US $16.73 billion for regional integration initiatives. During the past five years, it has increased investment in physical connectivity, digital transformation, energy integration, and ecosystem preservation.
Díaz-Granados said the region now needed to move beyond diagnosis and into delivery. “Regional integration has already achieved important progress, but it must now enter a more ambitious phase of implementation. Fewer barriers, more infrastructure. Fewer diagnoses, more projects,” he said.
For the Caribbean, where small, fragmented markets continue to face high transportation costs and limited connectivity, the program offers an opportunity to address longstanding structural constraints and to position the region to participate more fully in regional and global value chains.
Ultimately, the success of the initiative will depend not on the scale of the financing alone, but on the ability of governments and regional institutions to translate this renewed commitment to integration into tangible, cross-border projects that deliver measurable economic and social benefits.
CAF Regional Integration Initiative
In the framework of the International Forum on Regional Integration, Sergio Díaz-Granados, executive president of CAF -development bank of Latin America and the Caribbean- announced an investment of USD 10 billion through 2031 to finance regional integration projects. The resources will be allocated to strategic areas such as physical and digital infrastructure, intra-regional trade, energy, tourism, innovation, logistics, and mobility.
Díaz-Granados stressed that integration is “an imperative for the development, competitiveness and global positioning of Latin America and the Caribbean”. In a context marked by geopolitical tensions, trade fragmentation, financial turbulence, and a new normal of uncertainty, the countries of the region must bet on regional integration to influence major global value chains, the energy transition, food security, and the world’s new productive architecture.
The new US $10 billion commitment builds on CAF’s longstanding role in financing cross-border development. Over the past 30 years, the bank has approved 118 credit operations valued at US $16.73 billion for regional integration initiatives. During the past five years, it has increased investment in physical connectivity, digital transformation, energy integration, and ecosystem preservation.
CAF raises capital by issuing highly rated bonds in international capital markets. It then lends those funds to member countries at competitive interest rates and long repayment terms. It also provides grants and technical assistance for project preparation and institutional capacity building.
Dustin Rennie & Luigi Wewegi at CAF Forum
Belize at CAF Economic Forum 2026
Dustin Rennie and Dr. Luigi Wewege
Latin America & Caribbean Economic Forum 2026
