Luciana Botafogo, FONPLATA Development Bank Executive President, on the financing gap, leveraging resources and partnering with the OPEC Fund

As part of the OPEC Fund’s Development Forum 2025 interview series, we spoke with Luciana Botafogo is the Executive President of FONPLATA Development Bank, to explore how FONPLATA is addressing the financing gap, catalyzing resources from the private sector and collaborating on new projects with the OPEC Fund.

Luciana Botafogo has more than 25 years of experience in Latin America and the Caribbean in economic and social development. She previously served as Operations and Countries Manager at FONPLATA and held senior roles at the Inter-American Development Bank and SEBRAE Nacional, a social institution supporting small businesses. A Brazilian national, she holds degrees from the University of Maryland and George Washington University, USA and Fundação Dom Cabral, Brazil.

We face multiple challenges but see increased cooperation. Can you elaborate on your activities?

We’re very proud to make a linkage between big international investors and pressing local priorities. FONPLATA is an expert in reaching remote areas and catalyzing resources from the private sector. We tap the market to attract more capital, including from multilateral partners.

This is a very important moment for FONPLATA: We're doubling our capital and we need our partners to join us to help support infrastructure needs in the region. We have a pilot in Brazil which is about to start and a big pipeline which we hope to expand further quickly.

The financing gap is huge. Do you see positive momentum in tackling that gap?

We’re all working together and trying to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. It’s a difficult objective but we’re going in the right direction. I see a lot of cooperation and synergy across all the multilaterals to leverage resources.

How would you characterize the strategic value of the partnership between FONPLATA and the OPEC Fund?

Last year we signed a Memorandum of Understanding. We’re now co-financing in a more structured partnership framework and we have a  pre-investment fund for project preparation and technical assistance. In the future we're hoping to collaborate even more. The OPEC Fund is really supporting us, while sharing the same vision and objectives.