OSLO, Norway 11/22/11 (PennWell) -- The Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) is lending US$50 million to a unit of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) to help finance environmental projects in Latin America including hydropower.

NIB said allocation of projects will be based on the mutual interest of NIB and IADB's Inter-American Investment Corp. (IIC), particularly in the area of climate change mitigation.

"At least 70 percent of the loan will be dedicated to renewable energy generation projects, including hydropower, wind power, certain types of biomass projects, and Clean Development Mechanism projects, in any country where the IIC is active," NIB said. "The remaining 30 percent can further be allocated to energy efficiency measures."

The loan program is to be coordinated with existing climate change programs developed by IIC and the Nordic Development Fund.

NIB, the international financial institution of eight Nordic and Baltic countries, participated in a 500 million kroner (US$88.9 million) loan in October for construction and upgrade of small hydropower projects in Norway.