Increasingly, there is a felt need that the international economic order in the 1980’s will have to evolve from one that has so far been largely shaped by the exigencies of the industrialized countries into one where developing countries have a stronger voice in the directions it should take. But greater participation in the shaping of a new world requires developing countries to be increasingly responsible for and reliant on themselves. It also means that economic development in developing countries should drive its momentum from cooperation and understanding not only from developed countries but more so from among ourselves, through our individual and collective imagination and initiatives. It is in this spirit of cooperation that we have organized ourselves into a World Federation of Development Financing Institutions (WFDFI). By combining the memberships of the three regional associations – the Association Latino-americana de Instituciones Financieras de Desarrollo (ALIDE), the Association of African Development Financing Institutions (AADFI) and the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (ADFIAP), the World Federation represents a unified force which aims to promote development banking more efficiently by bringing about a closer working cooperation among the DFI’s of the world.

The World Federation of Development Financing Institutions upholds the primacy of its commitment to the development of the regional associations as well as individual member-DFIs, varied and diverse may they and their programs be. More particularly, it supports not only the traditional role of development banking but also the more aggressive thrust of diversification now gaining foothold in most DFIs in order to ensure the continued impact of DFIs in the economic development of their respective areas. Furthermore, the Federation aims to promote the interests of its members in a wider context of the worldwide environment besides working for its interests vis-à-vis multilateral agencies.

It is our hope that the formation of the World Federation will accelerate the fuller development of the technology of development financing and will help identify areas of concern faced by the member-DFIs of each regional association. Certainly, the emergence of the World Federation of Development Financing Institutions offers considerable potential for our individual and collective efforts amidst the setting of uncertainty and complexity of development that faces most of our countries in this decade of the 1980’s.