Latin America

Innovation plays a critical role in improving public health and in overcoming global health challenges. The call for LATAM Health Champions, which ran from February 5 to March 5, 2024, received more than 60 applications proposing innovative health solutions to a wide range of health challenges. Here, the top 20 are highlighted.

A recent working paper found that women in Latin America and the Caribbean with internet access had a 5 percent lower rate of job pre-pandemic job loss and about a 4 percent increase in their labor force participation rate than those without internet.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has played a significant role in the development of the Internet. Proposed changes to weaken or repeal it would have a significant economic impact on online services, business users, and consumers.

Europe’s digital model may not be the best fit for Brazil. Bill 2768/2022, mirroring the EU’s experimental Digital Markets Act, could potentially hinder innovation rather than ignite it. Brazil’s digital landscape calls for a culture of innovation, not borrowed blueprints of unnecessary intervention.

The Dominican Republic is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, offers perhaps the most attractive business environment in Latin America, and is a leading candidate for nearshored investments in advanced manufacturing activity—particularly for electronics such as printed circuit boards (PCBs) and the assembly, test, and packaging (ATP) of semiconductors.

Brazil should step back from following the EU’s experimental and harmful DMA regime and at least wait before embarking on a similar policy.

For policymakers to bolster the global competitiveness of their nations and regions, they first must know where they stand. This report benchmarks the 182 regions of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the United States using 13 commonly available indicators of strength in the knowledge economy, in globalization, and in innovation capacity.

Stephen Ezell gave a presentation at the 43rd Congress of the Brazilian Intellectual Property Association (ABPI) on how Brazil can advance its competitiveness in innovation-based industries.

Stephen Ezell joins the program at HigherHeight 2022, hosted by Pfizer Indonesia and the Indonesian Biotechnology Study Program Association (IPSBI), to discuss what Indonesia can learn from Mexico’s experiences in building up its life sciences innovation ecosystem.

If Latin America wants to avoid this fate, it needs to make a key decision: does it want to look east to China or north to the United States. The United States is leading the world in efforts to get China to roll back its unfair, mercantilist trade and economic policies. But that task will be much harder if the region sides with China or avoids the fight altogether and sits on the sidelines.