ECLAC proposes strengthening technological extension services and progressing

• • Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs presented the third edition of the flagship report Panorama of Productive Development Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean 2026 today.

SANTIAGO, Chile – Productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean has remained on a stagnated trend since the 2010s, and differences from the rest of the world continue to increase, warns the report Panorama of Productive Development Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean 2026, presented today by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). In 2025, labor productivity per hour worked in Latin America and the Caribbean increased by 0.7 percent, compared to a 0.8 percent increase in 2024. On average, each hour worked generated USD11.30 at current prices.

Latin America and the Caribbean is still caught in a trap of low capacity for growth and transformation, explained to a large extent by the stagnation of productivity, ECLAC emphasises. After the second lost decade (2014-2023), the region faces the challenge of recovering its capacity for growth in an international context marked by rivalry and technological and industrial competition among major powers.

The executive secretary of ECLAC, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, led the launch of the third edition of this annual flagship report, which analyses the region’s performance regarding productive transformation, productivity, and employment, as well as progress and challenges in productive development policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, in addition to offering guidelines for countries and their territories to strengthen these agendas. This year’s study focuses particularly on the role of technological extension services and human talent in the transformation of the region’s economies.

“Leveraging opportunities in the world economy in the new geopolitical era demands, now more than ever, turning the region’s assets into productive capacities, and doing so in a way that translates into both higher productivity and better employment opportunities. This requires scaling and improving productive development policies in the region,” noted Salazar-Xirinachs.

“With this publication, ECLAC reaffirms its commitment to accompanying and guiding the countries of this region and hopes to offer a useful tool for to national and subnational governments, the private sector, academia, and cooperation agencies to strengthen productive development policies at a time when strategic clarity, transformative ambition, and collective action are urgently needed,” emphasised the highest-ranking official at ECLAC.

New Productive Development and Employment Index (PDEI)

In the report, ECLAC reiterates the need for countries in the region to scale up and strengthen their productive development policies (PDP), through a new vision of these policies. The goal is to increase productivity and, at the same time, create more and better jobs, with positive effects on the population’s well-being.

To bring together this double goal of productivity and employment, ECLAC has included in this edition the Productive Development and Employment Index (PDEI), an indicator that combines the evolution of both dimensions and allows for recognition of its contribution to the population’s well-being, beyond the traditional measurement of per capita GDP (gross domestic product).

According to this new indicator, the region showed improvement during 2025. However, it shows performance significantly below that achieved in 2008, when the index recorded its highest level during the period beginning in 2005.

The report also includes a deeper analysis of the situation regarding productivity and employment in 11 countries in the region (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and the Dominica Republic), in order to contribute to the design and implementation of productive development policies.

Technological extension services: A tool to increase productivity in companies 

The adoption of technologies and the improvement of management practices are essential to increasing the productivity of companies, especially micro-, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), which in many cases operate far from the technological frontier, the study highlights.

The report analyses the role of technological extension services (TES), an intervention that, when properly applied, has proven to be very effective in numerous countries around the world and includes assessments and specialised accompaniment to companies to facilitate the adoption, adaptation, and leveraging of available technologies.

To understand its scope in the region, ECLAC examined 25 policy documents in 17 countries, mapped 502 initiatives in 33 countries, and analysed the operation of 17 active programs in eight countries. One finding is that only 8 percent of the science, technology and innovation, and productive development policies reviewed include technological extension actions.

The results show that the regional offering is still fragmented and concentrated in the agricultural sector, which includes 68 percent of the initiatives identified, while participation in the manufacturing sector and coordination with policies in science, technology and innovation remain limited. Most of these initiatives promote adoption of digital technologies.

The main obstacles include the lack of stable financing, the availability of specialised extension service programmes, and the weaknesses of evaluation systems. The report also warns that the incorporation of a gender perspective is still partial and not systematic.

In this scenario, ECLAC recommends prioritising technological extension services as a strategic instrument in science, technology and innovation policies and productive development policies in order to improve productivity, create jobs, and reduce informality. To achieve this, it proposes a decalogue of specific recommendations, including, among others, scaling up coverage without compromising the quality of accompaniment, professionalising extension service programmes, developing hybrid models for providing services, and strengthening the evaluation of results.

Human talent: connecting human talent agendas with the needs of productive sectors

The chapter dedicated to human talent examines the policies and strategies of ten countries. Although all of them recognise, to a greater or lesser degree, the importance of people’s capacities for productive development, this recognition has still not translated, overall, into sectoral assessments of skills gaps, specific instruments, or institutionalised coordination mechanisms, the report warns.

In fact, only three of the ten countries analysed have institutionalised coordination mechanisms for human talent and productive development policies. The report also identifies scarce coordination between organisations responsible for both agendas, as well as general assessments that do not allow for anticipation of the competencies that will be needed by different economic sectors.

To overcome these gaps, ECLAC proposes including and coordinating agendas for identifying and closing human talent gaps under productive development policies. To do so, it proposes six guidelines to strengthen these efforts. They include linking training with sectoral productive development agendas; establishing permanent assessments of competency gaps; expanding training and certification instruments, and actively including the business sector.

The publication also proposes strengthening institutional capacities and coordination between public organisations, companies, workers, and subnational governments. Greater coordination, with a sectoral and territorial perspective, would make it possible to anticipate the needs of productive sectors and give continuity to efforts to transform economies.

“Since its first edition, the Panorama of Productive Development Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean has sought to contribute to the regional debate on the ‘whats’ and ‘hows’ to strengthen productive development policies, with proposals that make it possible to accelerate the productive transformation of our economies, increase their productivity, and improve employment conditions and well-being in the region,” noted Marco Llinás, director of the Productive and Business Development Division of ECLAC.