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Governments across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) face challenges in extending and maintaining infrastructure to serve their populations, especially as climate change and ecosystem degradation endanger communities and infrastructure assets across the region. To help address these challenges, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) aims to increase its support of Nature-based Solutions (NBS) in accordance with the banks 2020 Environmental and Social Sustainability Mainstreaming Action Plan. This Issue Brief serves two main functions. First, it describes IDB's growing focus on NBS and provides a tour of IDBs main offerings regarding NBS project support and investment. Second, it serves as a baseline of IDBs activities related to NBS from which the bank and partners can build upon moving forward. Going forward, IDB will ramp up support for clients to incorporate NBS considerations and opportunity analysis in country agreements and throughout all stages of project preparation, from investment identification to execution.

Las soluciones basadas en la naturaleza (SBN) pueden contribuir al desarrollo equitativo y sostenible en toda América Latina y el Caribe y representan una importante oportunidad de inversión para gobiernos nacionales y subnacionales, proveedores de servicios de infraestructura, bancos de desarrollo y empresas. Examinar el estado de los esfuerzos y resultados de las SBN en la región puede dar a conocer lo que se necesita para impulsar más inversiones hacia los proyectos de SBN. Para trazar el camino a seguir, este informe ofrece una revisión de los proyectos de SBN a nivel regional, su estado y las implicancias para la inversión. Estos proyectos de SBN tratan de abordar una serie de objetivos, como asegurar el suministro de agua, mejorar la calidad del agua, reducir el riesgo de desprendimiento y ayudar a gestionar las inundaciones urbanas, las inundaciones fluviales o las inundaciones y la erosión costeras. Los proyectos usan una amplia variedad de tipos de SBN, desde el manejo forestal hasta la restauración de arrecifes de coral. En este informe se describen las dificultades de extender la adopción de SBN en la región y se identifican las estrategias para hacer frente a los retos que surjan.

The Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region enjoys an exuberant natural wealth; with 16 percent of the planets land, the region is home to 40 percent of the worlds biological diversity. This report investigates and provides a good overview of the regions efforts to mainstream natural capital and biodiversity concerns into public policy. It also provides a series of policy tools and instruments:payments for ecosystems services, innovation in managing protected areas, conservation trust funds, nature-based solutions for infrastructure, small-scale sustainable fisheries management, natural capital and ecosystem accounting, and ecosystem-based adaptation in agriculture. Two key lessons emerge from this report. First, mainstreaming natural capital and biodiversity considerations into day-to-day activities inevitably requires the involvement of multiple stakeholders (from communities to private firms) that should become central players in constructing and governing LACs natural wealth. Still, all the tools described in this report share a common feature: strong endorsement and support from government institutions, well beyond environmental authorities. Second, the lessons derived from policy tools with a longer history are evidence of the constant political, financial, and technical challenges faced by these policies for long-term sustainability. Although some of the policy tools described in this report have a long history, none of them can take their survival for granted. Solving the financial and technical challenges is typically the only functioning strategy to deal with political issues. The report suggests a series of key enabling conditions that facilitate mainstreaming natural capital and biodiversity considerations into public policy.

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are a cost effective way to build infrastructure resilient to a changing climate, while also delivering other societal benefits. Yet, project developers in Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) have limited experience structuring these type of projects. In tackling some of these downstream challenges, the present technical guide provides a 12-step process to integrate NbS into project development. The Guidance is targeted to planners, engineers, architects, contractors and operators interested in preparing bankable climate resilient projects that incorporate NbS either as a substitute, complement or safeguard to conventional infrastructure projects.

In 2009 remittance flows to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) declined as a result of the impact of the global financial crisis on countries in which migrants from the region live and work. The recessions in major remittance-sending countries such as the United States, Spain, and Japan had a strong impact on the employment and income of remittance senders, and, as a result, the annual accumulated volume of remittances to LAC dropped substantially, reaching $US 58.8 billion at the end of the year.

The IDB projects that remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean will grow by 1.5% in 2008, reaching 67.5 billion dollars. Despite a nominal increase, this will be the first year on record during which the real contribution of remittances to households will have decreased. Adjusted for inflation and exchange rate variations, the IDB estimates that remittances will have contributed 1.7 % less to the household incomes in Latin America and the Caribbean than in 2007.