This webinar is the second of a four-part webinar series. The purpose of this series of webinars is to assess what this new consensus means and involves, particularly for developing countries. Tapping into the expertise of the recently launched Oxford Handbook on Industrial Policy, this second webinar will explore the challenges and areas of debate posed within the Latin American and the Caribbean region context.
During the last two decades and following a substantial increase in the international commodity prices, most countries in the global South attained high growth rates, large reductions in extreme poverty, and an expansion of the middle class. However, given the absence of a genuine process of structural transformation and in spite of their abundant reserves of natural resources, the road to development for the Latin American region has been difficult to generate inclusive growth and decent employment.
Hence, this particular webinar seeks to find answers if industrial policies are central to achieving a high level of socio-economic development and requires interventions that go beyond macroeconomic stability, the transparent functioning of markets, and an insertion into the world economy based on the promotion of foreign direct investment and indiscriminate trade liberalization.
The seminar will promote a discussion oriented towards the definition of a renewed strategy for the region, aimed at promoting sustainable growth through the creation of economic and social value above what accrues from its natural, demographic, and geographical comparative advantages.
Programme
Introduction:
- H.E. Federico Villegas, Permanent Representative of Argentina to the United Nations Office at Geneva
Moderator:
- Martin Rapetti, Associate Professor of Macroeconomy II and Director of the Economy M.A. in the University of Buenos Aires, Economic Development Program Director, CIPPEC
Presenters:
- Mario Cimoli, Deputy Secretary Executive of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
- Luis E. Bértola Flores, Professor de History and Social and Economic Development, Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad de la República, Uruguay
- Maria Savona, Professor of Economics of Innovation, Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) University of Sussex and of Applied Economics at DEF, Luiss University, Rome
- José Gabriel Porcile Meirelles, Economics Affairs Officer and Officer in Charge of the ECLAC Office in Montevideo.
Question & Answer Session
Closing remarks:
- Richard Kozul-Wright, Director, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, (UNCTAD)
Watch webinar recording
Federico Villegas is the Permanent Representative of Argentina to the United Nations Office at Geneva, since 2020. Prior to his arrival in Geneva, Mr. Villegas had been serving as Argentina’s Ambassador to Mozambique until 2016. He served as the Director General of Human Rights at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina from 2012 to 2016, and from 2005 to 2007. He was Argentina’s Alternate Representative to the Southern Common Market MERCOSUR and the Association for Latin-American Integration ALADI in Montevideo, Uruguay from 2008 to 2011.
A career diplomat, Mr. Villegas joined Argentina's Foreign Service in 1993. He was Deputy Director General of Human Rights at the Ministry in 2003 and 2004, and Argentina’s Alternate Representative to the Organization of American States in Washington DC from 1995 to 2003. He also served at the Directorate of International Security, Nuclear and Space Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1993 to 1995.
Mr. Villegas has a Master of Arts in liberal studies from Georgetown University, Washington DC (1998). He graduated as a lawyer from the National University of Rosario in Santa Fe, Argentina (1989). He also attended an intensive programme for human rights at New College, Oxford University, United Kingdom (1999), and has a human rights diploma from the International Institute of Human Rights, Strasbourg, France (2001). He was born in Santiago del Estero, Argentina on 24 March 1966. He is married with two children.
Mario Cimoli is the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). With over twenty years of experience in the United Nations, he is responsible for overseeing and coordinating multi-disciplinary and inter-divisional working groups, substantive institutional documents, and advisory services to ECLAC member governments on development issues.
He has also served as Director of the Division of Production, Productivity and Management since 2010, overseeing research and technical assistance to Member State governments on issues related to the productive development of the region. Prior to joining the United Nations, he was Professor of Economics at the University of Venice. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Sussex.
His extensive publication record reflects a substantial contribution to the fields of micro and macroeconomic policies, with a focus on development paths, economic growth and the interconnections between industrial policy, technological development and innovation.
Recent publications include: Industrial Policies, Patterns of Learning and Development: an Evolutionary Perspective (2020); Choosing sides in the trilemma: international financial cycles and structural change in developing economies (2020); and A technology gap interpretation of growth paths in Asia and Latin America (2019). These complement his seminal works: Learning, Technological Capabilities and Structural Dynamics (2011); Innovation and Economic Development: the Impact of Information and Communication Technologies in Latin America (2010); Industrial Policy and Development, The Political Economy of Capabilities Accumulation (with Dosi, G. and J. E. Stiglitz, 2009); and Institutions and policies in developing economies (with Dosi, G., R. R. Nelson, and J. E. Stiglitz, 2009).
Richard Kozul-Wright is the director of UNCTAD’s globalization and development strategies division.
He has worked at the UN in both New York and Geneva and published widely on economic issues, including in the Economic Journal, the Cambridge Journal of Economics, the Journal of Development Studies, and the Oxford Review of Economic Policy.
He has co-written books such as The Resistible Rise of Market Fundamentalism with Paul Rayment and co-edited volumes of Transnational Corporations and the Global Economy, Economic Insecurity and Development, Securing Peace, Climate Protection and Development and Industrial Policy.
He also co-edited Transforming Economies: Making Industrial Policy Work for Growth, Jobs and Development with the International Labour Organization.
He holds a PhD degree in economics from the University of Cambridge in the UK.
