Latin America needs innovation to increase productivity

Innovation is vital for promoting business ecosystems that help increase productivity and sustained medium- and long-term growth. And to promote innovation, it is necessary to reach a wide-ranging political consensus involving all social sectors and promoting efficient measures, independent of the countries’ political situations. These are the main conclusions of the second day of the CAF Conference, which gathered more than 500 experts in Bogotá to discuss how Latin America can improve its productivity and, thus, achieve inclusive and sustained growth.

The main focal points of the debate revolved around the role that companies, governments and academia should play in encouraging permanent innovation processes. Rosario Córdoba, President of Colombia’s Private Council for Competitiveness, believes it is necessary to convince companies that innovation is the way forward, although she recognized that sometimes ecosystems fail to promote the conditions to embed innovation in systematic processes.

Furthermore, Stuart Martin, CEO of Catapult Satelite Applications, noted the importance of efficiently managing scientific knowledge available in order to unleash viable innovative processes. “When innovation and knowledge work together, the impact can be very positive,” he said.

Experts also agreed that countries in the region should work to reach the consensus needed to create permanent agendas that lead to agreements among all social, political and economic stakeholders. “To increase productivity, we also need political transformations. Inputs from the public sector must come in the form of infrastructure, regulation, training and coordination of initiatives,” said Michael Reid, columnist for The Economist.

In this sense, Lilia Aguilar Gil, former Federal Deputy in Mexico, said that the region needs horizontal, vertical and cross-cutting agreements to generate stability and productivity and overcome the existing mistrust in the public sector. Ricardo Sennes, managing partner of Prospectiva also advocated creating a new agenda. “Not only an agenda with new content but with a new regional strategy for actions we have to carry out in the long run and that involve all countries,” said Sennes.

The region has a long way to go, but there are several successful experiences that can inspire new business ventures. Rocío Fonseca, innovation manager at CORFO, explained that “big changes can be achieved through creativity and innovation. We have to take good practices from creative industries and transfer them to traditional sectors.”