Santiago de Chile, 10 December 2024 - The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) together with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) co-organized a joint event titled Latin America and the Caribbean in the new era of industrial and productive development policies in Santiago de Chile on 10 December 2024. 

UNIDO’s Industrial Development Report (IDR) 2024 and ECLAC’s Panorama of Productive Development Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2024 were presented during the event followed by a panel discussion on their main findings and implications for the region with prominent experts from the public and private sectors. 

In his opening remarks, Javier Medina-Vásquez, Deputy Executive Secretary at ECLAC, stated that despite hearing a lot about “the return” of industrial policies in the global agenda in the past years, these policies have never been absent in the agenda of ECLAC, which has always considered them as essential to address the great challenges of the region. This was echoed by Cecilia Ugaz Estrada, Deputy Director General and Managing Director of the Directorate of Strategic Planning, Programming and Policy at UNIDO, who stressed that the transformative potential of industry is not automatic and requires active industrial policies, designed under clear strategies focused on the acceleration of sustainable development. 

After short presentations of the flagship reports’ main findings and messages delivered by Alejandro Lavopa (UNIDO) and Marco Llinás (ECLAC), six experts from the region were invited to present their own experiences and discuss how collaboration can enhance the impact of industrial and productive development policies and drive structural change in the region. 

Cinthya Arteaga, Undersecretary of Business Development and Domestic Trade at the Secretary of Economic Development of Honduras, highlighted the lack of policy continuity, financial resources and a clear cooperation and communication between actors as three major constraints to the successful implementation of industrial and productive policies in the region. She then elaborated on some of the initiatives that the government of Honduras is currently taking to overcome these challenges, including the reinforcement of technical teams in the government, the development of new financing models together with the national development bank and the strengthening of technical and vocational trainings.

Silvana Grosso, Chief of the Industrial Policy Area of the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining of Uruguay presented the government’s experience in generating collaborative spaces for key stakeholders in the design and implementation of industrial and productive policies at the political and technical levels. These spaces include diagnostics teams, inter-ministerial working groups, and sectorial councils formed by the public and private sectors, academia, and workers. Two important results of these spaces have been the generation of normative frameworks that could facilitate the development of new sectors and strengthening the dialogue with the private sector.

Daniel Gómez, Vice President of the Private Competitiveness Council of Colombia highlighted the importance of developing trust mechanisms between the public and private sectors to ensure the private sector’s continued participation in the formulation and implementation of industrial and productive policies. He listed three key components to stimulate the private sector’s engagement: a governance structure that facilitates discussion amongst public and private actors, a long-term vison that transcends political cycles, and instruments and programs funded by both the public and private sectors. 

Pablo Dragún, Director of the Center of Studies at the Industrial Union of Argentina elaborated on the opportunities opened by the megatrends that are shaping the future of industry and presented the case of “Ruta X”, a private-led initiative that supports the digital transformation of companies by providing credit and expertise to facilitate the digital transition. He also referred to the difficulties of the region in creating an integral vision and the standardized models to strengthen a regional common market.

Jocelyn Olivari, Innovation Manager at CORFO and Executive Director of the InnovaChile Committee stressed that Chile has defined three main “missions” for the country guided by the SDGs: fair decarbonization, resilience to climate change, and diversification and sophistication of production. She also emphasized the role that innovation ecosystems play in increasing the productivity of industrial firms in the region and highlighted the importance of sub-national level initiatives to enhance the effectiveness of industrial and productive initiatives. As an example on how these initiatives can work in practice, she mentioned CORFO’s regional committees of productive development whereby competencies and decision-making power are transferred to the regions so that they can finance initiatives according to their own capacities and resources. 

Cecilia Ugaz Estrada closed the session by emphasizing the richness of LAC’s experience in industrial and productive policies and highlighted the important lessons that can be drawn from this experience when designing future industrial policies across the region. In his closing remarks, Marco Llinás highlighted the need to go beyond the creation of agendas and move towards the implementation of concrete and action oriented policies. To do so, he indicated that it is imperative to address implementation bottlenecks, deepen knowledge and capacities, and strengthen the region’s political commitment to industrial and productive development policies for structural transformation.

The event was moderated by Cecilia Plottier (ECLAC) and Manuel Albaladejo (UNIDO).

To read the latest issue of UNIDO’s policy brief series please see: The new era of industrial policy in Latin America and the Caribbean: from SDG assessment to policy solutions

The full report and overview of the IDR 2024 can be found at https://www.unido.org/idr2024 

The “Panorama de las Políticas de Desarrollo Productivo en América Latina y el Caribe 2024” can be found at: https://www.cepal.org/en/publications/80643-panorama-productive-development-policies-latin-america-and-caribbean-2024-how-can

To watch the recording of the session please see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0X9ocvNIg4

For more information on the IDR, please contact: Alejandro Lavopa