Public-private alliances for long-term national development strategies

Few developing countries have succeeded in consistently closing theincome gap with the world's richest nations without proactive governmentaction in pursuit of economic transformation and a dynamic role in theglobal economy. Two factors are crucial here: the development andimplementation of a medium- and long-term strategy to achieve rapideconomic transformation, and the support provided to this strategy by apublic-private alliance forged by means of a social process suited to localconditions. This article analyses the way alliances of this kind operate in10 countries outside the region deemed to be successful because theyhave achieved a process of convergence with the developed countries orperformed better than those of Latin America and the Caribbean, despitehaving similar resource endowments. One element that is lacking in theregion, or at best is only incipient, is public-private collaboration. Thus,the aim of the analysis is to prompt reflection about the kind of allianceswe ourselves could form to underpin strategies aimed at creating "LatinAmerican tigers".