14 March 2012: The Latin American Development Bank (CAF) recently launched a Regional Innovation Initiative for the Development of Renewable Energy Generation and Energy Efficiency Technologies.

The Initiative was formally launched at a 1-2 March 2012 seminar in Lima, Peru and co-sponsored by the Andean Community (CAN) and French Cooperation in order to explore opportunities for European collaboration with Latin America in such technologies. CAF Executive Vice President Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia said the Initiative seeks to develop a methodology and platform to enable Latin American innovators, researchers and institutions to associate with one another in order to innovate, and later to scale up, commercialize and diffuse patents and technologies to develop. In other words, he said, CAF wishes to become a “patent incubator” for the region in these technologies.

He stressed that CAF is already is a leading source of multilateral financing for energy in Latin America and has positioned itself to be a center for knowledge generation and support for energy policy. He also expressed CAF’s commitment to develop the region’s abundant renewable energy resources and to implement an energy innovation network based on patent development. The seminar included participation by scientific experts and sectoral authorities involved with renewable energy projects from Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela. Besides the CAF presentation on its new Initiative, the seminar’s first day featured sessions on solar, wind, geothermal, marine and biomass energy, biofuels for ground and air transport, and energy and climate change. The second day featured sessions on energy use and storage and round tables on socioeconomic and international cooperation aspects of renewable energy development. [CAF Press Release (Spanish)]