The ECLAC/BNDE Economic Development Center and the training of a generation of development planners in Brazil

This paper attempts to reconstruct the history of the partnership between the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) and Brazil's National Bank for Economic Development (BNDE). The ECLAC/BNDE economic development center, which operated in Rio de Janeiro between 1960 and 1967, taught courses on the problems of economic development in various regions of the country, training a generation of economic planning specialists who worked to overcome underdevelopment. The center also functioned as a gateway to ECLAC's ideas in Brazil and as a pole of knowledge production in the field of economic development. Based on a combination of documents, press articles and the testimony of former members of the center, this article describes the activities of the organization and reviews the events that led to its creation, expansion and closure.