During February 14 - 15, 2008, Valerie Lorena, Program Manager of the Young Americas Business Trust, participated in the workshop Financial Inclusion in the Americas of the Treasury Department of the United States. Organized by the Treasurer of the United States, Ms. Anna Escobedo Cabral, the workshop aimed to promote the financial inclusion to expand economic development.

The workshop brought together four Latin American countries including Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, in an effort to share and learn from successful models on financial inclusion, to improve the access of Latin Americans to basic financial services.

Dr. Agustin Carstens, Secretary of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico, offered words of welcome to the audience. Representatives of the Governments of the participating countries, as well as international organizations such as the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank, The World Bank and representatives of private banks as Citibank and Visa exchanged experiences during their presentations with representatives of the Salvadoran Banks Association, Central Bank of Guatemala and the Financial Group FICOHSA from Honduras.

The workshop focused on a number of issues on tools to build financial security, including the improvement of loans to small businesses in Latin America, international regulations and the impact of remittances in the region.

During the sessions, the discussion centered on the challenges to creating more inclusive financial services and a variety of public and private sector initiatives were explored. Also, topics like strategies to reach underserved households, financial education strategies and small business lending were presented to the audience.

"To create awareness of the importance to bring financial education for young people in the Americas", said Valerie Lorena at the end of the workshop, referring to the participation of the YABT.

The US Department of the Treasury and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are organizing a major International Conference on Financial Education in collaboration with the YABT. The conference, to take place on May 7 and 8, 2008 in the Hall of the Americas of the OAS in Washington DC, will address Financial Literacy topics including financial education for young people. YABT will sponsor the webcasting via the OAS website at www.oas.org

For more information, please contact Valerie Lorena at: +1 202 458 6442 or vlorena@oas.org. To read the speech of the Treasurer Ms. Anna Escobedo Cabral, please click here.

Javiera Córdova
Program Officer
Young Americas Business Trust