Latin America invests about 2% of GDP on infrastructure. Between 1992 and 2011 China invested an average of 8.5% of GDP in infrastructure per year. Given the demonstrated effects of infrastructure on development and poverty reduction, it’s time for the region to make a concerted effort to attract foreign investors.
When we started this website, the idea was to begin a broad discussion of Latin America’s emerging foreign policy and its implications for inter-American relations, economic development and democracy and human rights. Here is the outline for a book chapter I’m working on on the topic of Latin America foreign policy—part of a larger book project by New York University and, later, my own book. Here I post the precis for comments. Any and all are welcome—in the spirit of the website and public debate. (Please forgive any typos.) The goal is to provoke discussion. Your comments will help.
Predictably, the rates of financial inclusion are significantly higher across the region for those with a secondary education. But there is one country that counters that trend: Argentina. Why?
A snapshot of the World Bank’s data on financial inclusion in Latin America.
There are multiple causes for the escalating crime and violence that is sweeping the region and making Latin America the region with the highest murder rates in the world. Narcotics trafficking, weak states, misguided anti-narcotics policies are all partly to blame. But given the numbers of U.S.-purchased weapons turning up in crime scenes in Central America, the U.S.’s lax gun control laws are another.
When analyzing Latin America, it is high time we stopped using the imagery of a “pink tide” and stop depicting the region in “good lefts” or “bad lefts.” Despite the rhetoric we often hear from politicians and pundits alike, with few exceptions we are entering an era of pragmatism and centrism.
Today we have a real opportunity to assess how southern regionalism become political spaces where policies are redefined and the norms of global political economy can be renegotiated.
Given the advances women have already made, a legal change to increase fathers’ roles in the home and thereby free up women to return to their careers offers a powerful means to helping women overcome the barriers to upper level career advancement.
With only one university in the top 100, what does this say about the ability of Latin America to produce an educated workforce that can complete in today’s global economy?
Latin America knows well the costs of failed drug policies, and it has an opportunity to show the way on improving global drug policy, even if UNGASS 2016 disappoints its present expectations.
