Earlier this month, Carlo Pietrobelli (Professorial Fellow at UNU-MERIT and holder of our UNESCO Chair on Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development for Latin America) gave a keynote speech at the Fourth Meeting of the Conference on Science, Innovation and Information and Communications Technologies. The Conference is a subsidiary body of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); it serves as a permanent forum for policy and technical...
This series tracks news and views from our ‘Evidence-Based Policy Research Methods’ (EPRM) course. Many participants work at the highest of levels, both nationally and internationally, including for other sections of the UN system. In normal times, they come to the City of Maastricht in the Netherlands for this unique blended learning programme, covering a total of three weeks in class and 10 weeks online. … In this blog post, I discuss the gender gap in the LAC region and explain how digi...
A guest post by Dr. Lidia Brito, UNESCO Regional Director of Science for Latin America and the Caribbean The declaration signed by the Heads of State and Government and High Representatives, meeting at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, established the adoption of “a historic decision on a comprehensive, far-reaching and people-centred set of universal and transformative Goals and targets.” There, the governments that signed committed themselves to working tirelessly for the full imple...
Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico were Latin America’s big winners in the 2017 edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII), which ranks the world’s economies on their innovative capabilities (innovation inputs) and measurable results (innovation outputs)....
Aquaculture supplies almost half the global fish harvest, and Chile stands out as a leader in this ‘blue revolution’. A new book, co-authored by Dr. Michiko Iizuka, investigates the rise of Chile’s salmon industry, showing how technical cooperation projects from the 1970s and 80s continue to shape the economy. The authors cover a range of issues including capacity development, environmental sustainability, institutions, social welfare and inclusiveness – and offer lessons to other natural resour...
Haiti is back in the news, following reports of vote rigging in its recent presidential elections. As the population struggles with further instability, part-time PhD fellow Corinne Bossé shares her research on this troubled Caribbean nation — research focusing on diaspora engagement, higher education and economic development. ••• Years after the earthquake of 2010, Haiti’s infrastructure remains crippled; it also has to cope with a massive outflow of highly educated people who would other...
Most people know very little about public procurement — yet it shapes everything from education to health to transport, and represents up to 30% of developing countries’ GDP. To find out more about this important but overlooked subject, Dr. Mindel van de Laar spoke to PhD fellow Ana Cristina Calderon Ramirez, whose research looks at the structure and efficiency of public procurement in Latin America. Can you tell us about your current employer and what your daily job looks like? AC: ...
Ecuador’s new ‘Vice-Minister, Technical Secretary for the Eradication of Poverty’, Andrés Mideros Mora, is an MPP alumnus and current PhD fellow at UNU-MERIT. In this brief interview, we ask how his studies in Maastricht helped his career, about the background to his role, and what he wants to achieve. — How has your time in Maastricht helped you? AMM: Both the MPP and PhD programmes have been key to this position. My Master’s thesis was related to multidimensional povert...
Our press review features the latest publications by UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance. Output for November includes eight journal articles, three reports, three working papers and eight PhD dissertations: covering firm innovations in Latin America, the impact of remittances on developing countries, and return migration in Turkey, among many others. Journal Articles ‘Innovation for Economic Performance: the Case of Latin American Firms’ analyses a wide range of innovation indicators to desc...
Most Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries have grown richer over the last decade. Yet in terms of productivity — the main driver of long-term growth — the region is failing to keep pace. Improving productivity is key, especially in services, according to a new paper co-authored by Fernando Vargas. Every year the service sector contributes more and more to LAC economies, but low productivity has long hindered progress. Across several fronts, the challenges and opportunities ar...