WASHINGTON, United States (CMC) — The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has launched the 2018 call for proposals for the Regional Public Goods (RPG) Initiative in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), which supports projects involving three or more countries.

The Washington-based financial institution said the RPG initiative provides technical grants to finance solutions that resolve shared challenges through regional cooperation.

Since 2004, the RPG initiative has financed 154 projects, investing more than US$112 million.

The IDB said the proposals must involve a collective solution produced by at least three IDB borrowing member countries.

“The initiative is open to the promotion of RPGs in any topic, alignment with the bank’ operational priorities is a selection criterion,” the statement said.

It said the other two criteria are the value added of a regional (versus national) approach to addressing a development challenge or opportunity, as well as sustaining the benefits of regional collective action beyond the support of the initiative.

The IDB said past RPG-funded projects have included a protocol for joint procurement and quality of medicines in Central America, an action plan for the energy efficiency in the Caribbean hotels, support to the interoperability of foreign trade single windows, a framework for protection and registration of migrant workers in the Southern Cone and regional standards for school infrastructure across Latin America and the Caribbean, among others.

All proposals must be presented in accordance with the general guidelines and must be submitted online on April 16, 2018.