I attended the Inter-American Development Bank’s “Building Opportunity for the Majority” conference today – a 2-day event serving as a launching pad for newly-elected Bank president Luis Alberto Moreno’s personal agenda. If Day One of the conference was any indication, Bank-watchers are in for some major changes under Mr. Moreno’s leadership.

The conference is being held in the IADB’s version of the “Palace of Poverty” – its own conference center. The 3 stories of the building I saw are outfitted in modern hardwood and steel, with soft lighting and two balconies. Especially nice are the booths for simultaneous translators to use – a big help for me and my high-school level Spanish. (Gracias, Senor Moreno.) As attendees filtered in, we were treated to coffee and a looped PowerPoint presentation in both English and Spanish highlighting the six elements underpinning Building Opportunity for the Majority (BOFM):

"I compare vaccines to water. I compare vaccines to education." -Jean R. Stephenne, President, Biologicals, GlaxoSmithKline, Belgium

"When you request 100-200 million units, you're able to influence corporate strategy."
-Professor Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman, One Laptop per Child, USA

"Knowledge is more important than aesthetics, more important than policy."
-John Restrepo, Executive Director, Parquesoft, Colombia

"What people want is for the telephone to be answered, quickly."
-Enrique Cañas, General Manager, Banco Uno, El Salvador
[on understanding the needs of financial services customers at the BOP]

"The aspiration for quality does not vary with income."
-Craig Fiebig, General Manager for Emerging Markets, Microsoft, USA

In grassroots politics, Porto Alegre is best known for participatory budgeting, a practice in which councils of city residents, and not political fat cats, decide how to allocate municipal funds. The success of this practice in rooting out corruption was a watershed event in local politics and other municipalities soon followed Porto Alegre’s lead. Now Porto Alegre is at it once again. This time, however, it is walking in the footsteps of other Latin American cities like Curitiba, Bogotá, and Mexico City, which have developed some of the most sophisticated mass transport systems in the developing world. These systems, which are both cheap and efficient, improve urban mobility, access to jobs, economic growth, and social equity.