This report summarizes 1997 activities of the Inter-American Foundation (IAF), an independent agency of the U.S. government. The IAF promotes equitable, participatory, and sustainable self-help development in Latin America and the Caribbean by awarding grants directly to local organizations, as well as by entering into partnerships with public- and private-sector entities to scale up support and mobilize resources for grassroots development. In 1997, IAF refined its own understanding of its program priorities of local development and social investment, established the previous year, and sought increasingly to bring the business sector into the development community. IAF awarded 81 new grants and 32 supplemental grants totaling $14.6 million. About a third of the funding went to enterprise development programs; 23 percent to food and agriculture programs; 22 percent to education and training programs; and the remainder to research and dissemination, cultural expression, health, ecodevelopment, and other programs. Educational programs included administration and leadership training, vocational training, educational improvement planning, agricultural education, youth programs, community education, environmental education, and education for women. This report briefly describes new and supplemental grants by country, lists Latin American and Caribbean graduate students awarded fellowships to study in the United States, lists IAF field research fellows with their research topics, describes IAF publications and videos, and summarizes financial information. (Contains many photographs.) (SV)