The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is the leading source of multilateral financing for economic, social and institutional projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition to loans, grants and credit guarantees, the Bank performs cutting-edge research projects to provide innovative and sustainable solutions to the most pressing problems of our region. Today, the IDB is particularly interested in fostering an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship to listen, inspire, experience and co-create solutions in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Innovation Lab of the IDB Since 2007 the Innovation Lab (I-Lab)of the IDB applies the social innovation methodology by creating platforms where citizens themselves define and prioritize their problems and connect with those who have the capabilities, interests and resources to address them: governments, universities and NGOs at the local, regional and global levels. In this project, whilemeeting with young inmates, they revealed their problems of stigmatization and labor market integration,with this call we want to look for innovative solutionsfor both of these challenges. We believe that people who benefit from our projects have a unique understanding of their problems and we therefore need to move them from the periphery to the center of the innovation process itself. For this to happen it requires a space of intersection between a community that shares a problem and those who have the knowledge, capital and networks to solve it. For this project we have been working closely with the Citizen Security Initiative of the IDB.
Citizen Security Initiative of the IDB In 2012, the IDB launched the Citizen Security Initiative which aims to contribute, through nonrefundable technical assistance resources, to improve the design, planning, management and evaluation of public policies in the area of citizen security and justice. The Initiative supports governmental entities on local, national and regional levels and civil society in three specific areas: 1. improve the generation and availability of data related to crime and violence, 2. strengthen the capacity of institutions that create public policies on citizen security, and 3. promote the exchange of knowledge and best practices.