IDB leader prepares massive overhaul
Posted on Mon, May. 15, 2006
INTERNATIONAL
IDB leader prepares massive overhaul
BY PABLO BACHELET
pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com
WASHINGTON - Luis Alberto Moreno has worked as a stable hand, a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, a
TV news producer and a diplomat lobbying to steer billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Colombia, his homeland.
Now Colombia's former ambassador to Washington is confronting his most daunting challenge yet: overhauling
the Inter-American Development Bank to make the world's biggest regional lending institution more relevant.
''One of the peculiarities of these development institutions . . . is that they have to keep finding their niche,'' the
IDB president told The Miami Herald.
Running the Washington-based IDB is one of the hemisphere's more prestigious and influential posts, opening
doors to presidential offices and business suites alike. Moreno's predecessor, Enrique Iglesias, a well-connected
Uruguayan diplomat, ran the bank for the past 17 years until October of last year.
But in the end, critics say, the bank fell out of touch with the region's needs and hasn't kept step with new
economic realities in the Americas.
''If the status quo continues, I don't see the bank closing up, but I see a mediocre institution,'' says Ileana RojasSuárez, an economist with the Washington think tank Center for Global Development.
The problem is that a commodities boom is fueling relatively good times in Latin America and governments don't
need IDB loans, which come with many good-governance strings attached.
SEEKING NEW CLIENTS
This means the bank has to target a new client base such as municipalities, provinces and private groups. But to
reach them, the bank needs a greater presence abroad and more agility in lending practices, says Rojas-Suárez.
Moreno says bank officials are drawing up a country-by-country business plan to bolster local offices that he
hopes will be completed this summer. Officials are also revising procedures to see how loan disbursements can
be sped up.
And Moreno wants more flexibility to do additional private sector work, noting that the bank can't finance a big
expansion of the Panama Canal because the Panamanian government won't provide loan guarantees.
One difficulty is that Moreno is being pulled from many directions. His big Latin American borrowers want more
money for large infrastructure projects, while the U.S. government wants more money for private ventures.
Poorer countries are clamoring for debt forgiveness, a concession nations such as Mexico and Brazil are reluctant
to give unless rich nations pay for it.
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IDB leader prepares massive overhaul
VARIED CAREER
Moreno, whose five-foot-three frame and boyish looks belie his 53 years, is no stranger to change. Throughout
his professional career. he seemed to toggle between public service and the hard-nosed world of business.
Born in Philadelphia, where his father was studying medicine, he grew up in the comfort of Colombia's upper
class, studying in private schools in Bogotá.
When he was pursuing a business and economics degree at Florida International University, his jobs included
parking attendant, door-to-door salesman for Kirby Vacuums and stable hand, caring for thoroughbreds.
He received an MBA in international business from the Thunderbird management school in Arizona in 1977 and
returned to Colombia to work for a firm importing industrial machinery. In 1982 Moreno, a news junkie, took a
job as executive producer of the TV Hoy news program. Eight years later, his journalism achievements earned
him a prestigious Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University.
When he returned to Colombia, then-President César Gaviria asked him to join his economic team, first as the
head of a state holding group and then as a minister of economic development.
After heading the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Andrés Pastrana in 1994, Moreno returned to the private
sector, working for the giant Sarmiento organization and for a private equity investment group.
AMBASSADOR IN '98
In 1998, after Pastrana won a second election bid, Moreno accepted an offer to become Colombia's ambassador
to Washington. In the process, he gave up his U.S. citizenship.
Moreno, married to Gabriela Febres-Cordero -- a former Venezuelan commerce minister, blended right into
Washington, using his charm and easy sense of humor, aides and acquaintances say. Former First Lady Barbara
Bush, noting his youthful looks, once asked if Colombia nominated its ambassadors straight out of high school.
No, straight out of grade school, he replied, in a reference to his small stature.
Moreno methodically set about contacting key players, especially members of Congress, who could help steer aid
to Colombia. As ambassador ''you have to learn to listen, and to speak to everybody,'' he says.
PERSONAL TOUCH
He personally met between 110 and 120 lawmakers a year and arranged fact-finding trips to Colombia for 150
members, and once arranged for the Colombian vice president and foreign minister to brief staffers on the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee on a delicate Colombian human rights issue. Sen. Richard Lugar, the
committee's Republican chairman, calls Moreno a ``highly effective ambassador.''
Under Moreno's watch, Congress appropriated more than $4 billion in U.S. aid for Colombia.
Initially, Moreno's candidacy to replace Iglesias seemed a long shot. He was viewed as too close to the Bush
administration and faced a strong Brazilian challenger.
With the enthusiastic backing of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Moreno personally pitched his candidacy
before almost every Latin American and Caribbean leader, starting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez,
Bush's most outspoken critic.
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IDB leader prepares massive overhaul
EASY VICTORY
He ended up winning easily.
Moreno doesn't have a strong background in finance or economics, but many critics of the IDB say he's what the
bank needs.
''You need doers, and he's a doer,'' says Rojas-Suárez, who headed an outside task force that wrote a report on
the bank's effectiveness earlier this year.
But Moreno knows he will have to move cautiously.
''These things aren't done in eight days,'' he says.
© 2006 MiamiHerald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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