JORGE FAMILIAR: LATIN AMERICA: GETTING ON THE KNOWLEDGE SUPERHIGHWAY
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JORGE FAMILIAR: LATIN AMERICA: GETTING ON THE KNOWLEDGE SUPERHIGHWAY

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In January 2010, past and present, near and far collided in one of the western hemisphere’s most tragic events.

The devastating earthquake which nearly wiped out Port-au-Prince on the afternoon of January 12, immediately brought to mind Banda Aceh, the Indonesian city battered by a tsunami six years earlier. But unlike in Aceh, first responders, aid and development organisations, and everyone eager to assist Haiti in dealing with the catastrophe now had access to a wealth of experience that could be quickly adapted and applied to the emergency.

This was global knowledge at its best. The lessons learned from Aceh were channelled through a superhighway of expertise, which connected Indonesia with Haiti across time and space, helping to bring some relief to the victims of the earthquake.

The knowledge generated by the global response to the Asian ordeal made many crucial relief and prevention actions possible in the new emergency. For instance:

• Volunteer developers were able to quickly draw interactive apps and maps of Port-au-Prince to help prioritise rescue and recovery actions

• A rapid response team of engineers and experts with experience in Aceh assembled to draw up blueprints for rebuilding more resiliently

• A high-tech situation room used NASA satellites and aircraft to accurately assess the damage on the ground

• Intensive emergency training allowed Haitians to improve their ability to prepare for storms during the hurricane season.

The global mobilisation following the Haiti earthquake would have been much less effective had it not been for the amassed experience from faraway places, as well as the mechanisms to make that experience available just as it was direly needed. Beyond disaster response, multilateral development institutions are the natural repositories of vital global knowledge, which needs to be applicable and adaptable across very different circumstances.

In Latin America and the Caribbean there are many good examples of this global two-way flow of knowledge and expertise in action.

Latin America has been looking to the Asian Tigers and China for ideas and approaches to tap into global value chains. In the current context of slower global growth, it is essential to learn from successes and failures both within and outside the region. Of particular interest is East Asia’s successful integration into the global economy, and its participation in regional production networks. This dynamic trade integration, of course, has its limits, and the challenge today of many East Asian countries is how to escape this middle-income trap —something Latin America is all too familiar with.

From Brazil learning about South African urban poverty reduction strategies, to Haiti benefiting from Rwanda’s experience curbing malnutrition, to finding ways to adapt the world’s best examples of education reforms to the regional context, Latin America is open to global knowledge wherever it may originate.

From Latin America to the world

In a truly virtuous cycle, the region also contributes lessons to the world for which the World Bank has proudly been a conduit. High on the list of “Made in Latin America” contributions are the conditional cash transfer (CCT) and social safety net systems that were launched in the region a few decades back.

The positive impact of CCTs has drawn the attention of many. Today more than 50 countries have replicated the initiative. So far, the World Bank has supported social safety net programmes in 122 countries and regions, with $16bn in the past seven years. Countries as diverse as the Philippines, Ethiopia and India have benefited from the knowledge developed in Latin America to achieve higher school enrolment and reductions in child labour, higher household spending and more people making use of preventive health services. In Latin America itself, CCTs also played an important role in the creation of opportunity and shared prosperity, and — together with growth and jobs — contributed to lift more than 70 million people from poverty in the past 10 years.

At the same time, the World Bank facilitates numerous other initiatives that take LAC’s expertise to where it is most needed. Coffee growers from Rwanda, Burundi and Ethiopia are learning from their peers in Colombia how to make their beans more environmentally sustainable. Climate-related innovations are also being exported to other parts of the region and beyond, notably Uruguay’s climate insurance mechanism, which protects energy production from the lack of rain. Bolivia’s Barrios de Verdad, which revamps infrastructure and services in vulnerable neighbourhoods, has been mirrored in Guatemala, Ecuador and Bangladesh. More generally, the region is consulted on a regular basis on its successful experiences in fiscal and macroeconomic management.

However, in spite of its significant economic and social achievements, Latin America still faces important challenges. The foundation for sustained — and sustainable — growth needs to be strengthened. Likewise, the region remains very unequal, with one out of five people stuck in a persistent cycle of poverty — the so-called chronic poor.

But we can shorten the road toward sustained and shared prosperity — for the region and beyond — by bringing in the experiences of others and sharing Latin America’s. Facilitating this global two-way exchange is at the heart of attaining the World Bank Group’s development mission. As an institution, that’s an important value-added we provide.



Jorge Familiar is the World Bank Vice President for Latin America & the Caribbean

Follow Jorge on Twitter @Familiar_BM

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