Juan Manuel Santos, the President of Colombia, welcomed GDN’s 12th Annual Conference back to the Latin American continent for the first time in nine years. He spoke of the importance of the conference in bringing together critical thinkers to inform good policy decisions. “We never make decisions with 100% certainty that it will be right, but institutions like GDN, which the entire world acknowledges is of the highest intellectual level, can give us important guidance and signals….to make our world a better world"...

The panelists in the first Plenary Session of GDN’s 12th Annual Conference agreed that financing has become widely available for developing countries in the past few years, and that the main issue has become how to allocate it.

Francois Bourguignon, Director of the Paris School of Economics, claimed that financing has increased significantly in the last years and the main issue has become finding the most suitable finance scheme to maximize social return and avoid a poverty trap. Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Chief Economist of the Financial and Private Sector Network in the World Bank, pointed out that there are some undesirable effects of having such a wide availability of financing, including the irresponsible expansion of access to credit...

The Opening Ceremony at GDN’s 2011 Conference received major coverage from the local media, making headlines in written press and TV news. The journalists were specially attracted by the President Santos and Minister of Finance appearances, on what they called “a meeting of the most important economists of the world”. Previously, GDN’s President Gerardo della Paolera was interviewed by the leading financial newspaper of Colombia...

The discussion held during the session, Financial Crisis and Financial Inclusion: What we know, and what can be done? shed light on potential alternatives for financing development in a post-crisis scenario. The event showcased various case studies from Latin America and Asia on policy options carried out to promote credit access to a wider spectrum of the population. In the session, determinants and alternatives for financial inclusion were thoroughly examined, as well as potential obstacles which countries could face when implementing credit-promoting processes...