Artificial Intelligence to Improve Lives

This article was written by Maria Isabel Mejia and Martha Cecilia Rodriguez.

With various contexts and at different scales, Latin American countries face challenges of inequality, low productivity, lack of transparency and corruption, while sharing a global commitment to reversing the environmental debacle.  

The region will face the post-pandemic scenario in the midst of a recession and increased public and private debt, which may lead to loss of achievements attained over the past few decades. To return to sustained growth and reduce inequality, each country’s development strategies will need to be adapted to optimize the use of their resources to reinforce education and healthcare systems, and close the digitalization gap, which will result in increased productivity and inclusion.  

These challenges can only be addressed by devising new social and political models, with values of freedom and equality at the core, in order to build citizens’ trust in public institutions. This will require a renewed state capacity to deliver public goods and services with transparency, curbing corruption.

At CAF—development bank of Latin America—, the Directorate of Digital Innovation of the State (DIDE) under the Vice Presidency of Knowledge, promotes the modernization of the State by promoting more agile, open and innovative governments, building on new technologies and data intelligence, to promote improved efficiency of public management and quality of services offered to Latin Americans. DIDE is currently promoting a regional initiative aimed at encouraging the public sector of Latin American countries to generate social and economic value based on the strategic use of data and artificial intelligence (AI).

In this context, the municipal authorities of CAF’s partner countries were called on to present projects that help address public problems, through the strategic use of data and AI. The response to the call shows very promising insights into what is happening in the region around this issue.

First, it is worth noting the number and origin of proposals, which shows the great interest of municipalities and cities of the region to develop such projects that seek to improve public management, transparency and services to citizens. A total of 89 projects were received from 70 cities and municipalities, from 11 countries in the region: Argentina (18), Bolivia (1), Brazil (6), Chile (5), Colombia (29), Costa Rica (2), Ecuador (10), Mexico (9), Panama (3), Peru (3), and Venezuela (3).

The diversity of topics covered in the proposals is immense, which shows that artificial intelligence is a cross-cutting technology that can contribute to the solution of multiple public problems, which could be categorized as follows:

• Projects to improve the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies, with initiatives related to innovation and productive development, environmental protection, natural disaster relief, support for victims of armed conflict, and well-being of the adult population.
• Projects to improve the design and delivery of services to citizens and businesses, with solutions for public services through chat bots, healthcare, public safety, justice, transit, and collection and transport of hazardous hospital waste.
• Projects to improve internal management of government agencies, highlighting initiatives related to public procurement.

The potential for escalation and replication of such projects is also significant not only in the country developing them, but in other countries in the region and the world facing similar challenges. Examples of this are the winning proposal “Artificial intelligence for the prediction of irregularities and inefficiencies in public procurement” of the District Comptroller of Bogotá, Colombia, and the honorable mention, “Smart Early Warning (SEW)” to detect early or potential outbreaks based on collective behaviors, presented by the municipality of San Martín of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Only 20% of the projects submitted were structured and in the implementation stage or ready to start, and had completed their design stages, pilots and/or proofs of concept, which could be a sign of barriers to advance to subsequent stages, and thus, some questions arise: To what extent is there a need for greater knowledge among public sector leaders about opportunities and challenges of using data and emerging technologies such as AI? What factors such as lack of political will, shortage of human or financial resources are most relevant to give continuity to this type of initiative? Alternatively, do these initiatives progress at a slower pace in the public sector because there is a high public risk aversion, an incipient culture of innovation, or limited capacities for financial structuring and project execution?

CAF’s initiative will address these concerns and continue to elaborate on these and other issues, in an attempt to understand the state of the art of strategic use of data and AI in the public sector internationally, raise awareness of their usage opportunities and support countries and cities in the region in the design and implementation of data- and AI-driven policies, plans, programs and projects.

This is expected to produce practical recommendations for Latin American countries, as there is no doubt that strategic use of data and AI can be a powerful lever for the public sector in the region to generate social and economic value, provided that its implementation is guided by appropriate public policies, supported by ethical and regulatory frameworks that promote a responsible use.