Latin America: Latest analysis, insights and developments from the World Economic Forum

The Colombian city of Medellín is prioritizing direct citizen well-being over traditional metrics to restore public trust and social cohesion, writes Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez Zuluaga and Catalina Restrepo, Director of the Medellín Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Moreover, rather than defining success by metrics alone, the city has focused on something harder to measure and easier to overlook: whether its citizens actually experience progress in their daily lives.

While advancing quickly on gender equality, Latin America is yet to seriously address workplace and boardroom exclusion based on class factors, writes Mia Perdomo, Co-Founder and CEO of Aequales.

Companies, Perdomo argues, must identify and remove structural barriers to people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, both outside and within organizations.

Latin America and the Caribbean are having success in breaking old patterns of economic instability, and a convergence towards a broad set of shared macroeconomic principles is becoming evident, writes William Maloney, Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank Group.

Latin America, however, must solve its “innovation paradox” by pairing stable business climates with entrepreneurial capabilities, according to Maloney.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to significantly increase productivity, allowing workers and businesses to focus on higher value activities, boosting output for the same time, labour and capital investment.

This new Intelligent Age presents a strategic opportunity to boost productivity in Latin America, where competitiveness has historically been lower than other regions. The World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company have partnered on a white paper that sheds light on the region’s AI competitiveness potential, brings original data on the state of adoption, and proposes a regional AI Competitiveness Roadmap to foster regional collaboration and coordinated action.

Can radical reform unlock Argentina's long-awaited economic recovery?

Alejo Czerwonko, Chief Investment Officer of Emerging Markets at UBS AG, examines Argentina's economy and argues that a sustained recovery hinges on deeper structural reforms, and attracting large-scale foreign direct investment.

What’s shaping Latin America right now? Drawing on the World Economic Forum’s network of leaders and experts, this tracker curates the latest insights, data and analysis from and on the region to help make sense of the news.