Analysis of FDI trends offers strategies for harnessing investments to drive inclusive, sustainable progress. It calls for policies and coordinated public-private efforts to channel funds into high-quality employment, environmental protection, and technological innovation in Latin America and the Caribbean.
This document examines the global and regional evolution of FDI and offers recommendations so these flows can contribute to the region's productive development processes. FDI can support the investments needed for countries to move towards more inclusive and sustainable development, but, as ECLAC has argued in successive editions of this report, that does not happen automatically. Policies are needed to provide the necessary framework so that FDI entering the region is directed towards activities that support virtuous development in respect of inclusiveness, employment quality, environmental sustainability, innovation and technological sophistication. Given the growing complexity of the international landscape, it is becoming increasingly necessary to establish national and multilateral development strategies in the region and to coordinate public and private efforts so that Latin America and the Caribbean can position itself in the global economic landscape in a way that helps it to move towards inclusive and sustainable development, rather than being relegated to a marginal role determined by exogenous strategies.