SANTIAGO DE CHILE, 8 May 2009: The lack of a strategy for public-private partnerships to bring forward rapid transformations in Latin America and Caribbean economies is hampering their international insertion, as other regions in the world have achieved.
This is what ECLAC (Economic Commission for LA and the Caribbean) economists Robert Devlin and Graciela Moguillansky assert in the article Public-private partnerships as a national development strategy published in the CEPAL Review N° 97 (Spanish version).
Public-private cooperation is practically inexistent in the region, say the authors, who nevertheless acknowledge the progress made between 2003 and 2008 in consolidating democracy, implementing structural reforms and recovering economic growth.
Attaining this cooperation is vital for achieving high and sustained growth rates that may drastically reduce poverty, state the authors. Although it appears to be a difficult task, it is not impossible, as demonstrated in other countries across the globe.
The article examines the experience of Spain, Finland, Ireland, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal and Hong Kong. Their success has a common denominator: governments’ proactive approach in developing a national, medium and long-term strategy for productive transformation geared at their country’s international insertion and organized around public-private partnerships.
Devlin and Moguillansky conceive the current global financial crisis as an opportunity to put forward this strategy. By doing this, the region will improve its position in the global market and make the most of economic growth once the world economy resumes its dynamism, contributing to the development of Latin American “tigers”, they state.
The authors define real partnerships as those based on a consensus that goes beyond political cycles, and where the public sector is a credible partner for the private sector.
This requires a social and political process of trial and error that is inclusive and representative, is supported from the highest level, identifies opportunities for advancing the productive transformation and dynamic international insertion of the country, and defines restrictions on the short, medium and long run.
The article Public-private partnerships as a national development strategy, published in CEPAL Review N° 97, is available in Spanish on the ECLAC webpage, www.eclac.org
