The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) launched two new contingent credit facilities for Latin America and the Caribbean today, one to help countries deal beforehand with shocks caused by external financial crises and another to help nations cope with the aftermath of natural disasters.

A new Development Sustainability Contingent Credit Line (DSL) will make $6 billion available to the IDB’s 26 borrowing member countries over the 2012-2014 period, with a maximum of $2 billion per year and with unused resources from one year carrying over to the next one. The new line is designed to help countries protect its poorest citizens from sharp fluctuations in commodity prices, global liquidity crises and other exogenous factors.

Read more: http://iadb.org/en/news/news-releases/2012-10-05/credit-lines-external-s...