The president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, and the president of the IDB Group, Ilan Goldfajn, spoke this Monday about educational reform in Panama and the mobilization of investments toward the Central American country, where the multilateral organization plans to develop a program in 2026 that "exceeds $1,000 million between public and private operations." Goldfajn is visiting Panama for the installation on Tuesday in the Panamanian capital of the 39th Meeting of the Governors of the Central American Isthmus, Panama, and the Dominican Republic of the IDB Group, which is made up of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) - which works with the public sector - IDB Invest (private sector) and IDB Lab, which promotes innovative entrepreneurship, as explained by the organization. A statement from the Presidency of Panama indicated that Mulino invited the IDB to be part of the process of updating the Panamanian education system, mainly with a focus on technology and digitalization, a proposal that "was received positively by the IDB team, which announced that it is working on a project with the multinational Google that includes 60,000 scholarships for the region, with Panama being one of the main beneficiaries." Likewise, Mulino and Goldfajn agreed on the importance of consolidating Panama's macroeconomic stability as a basis for attracting investment and generating employment, and within that framework, the IDB Group confirmed its intention to support strategic projects through complementary financing mechanisms, including public-private guarantees to mobilize greater resources and new private investment. Goldfajn announced that the IDB Group has made technical assistance resources available to Panama to support the design and implementation of an Action Plan to strengthen governance, transparency, and the adoption of international standards, the official statement reported.
