Development, Innovation and Natural Resources: The Latin-American Case

In this paper we analyze the development strategies that may be most suitable for Latin American countries. These countries are characterized, among other things, by a relative abundant endowment of natural resources. However, a development strategy based purely on natural resource factors seems very weak and plagued with pitfalls that have hindered socio-economic development in these countries in the past. We explore an alternative strategy based on the combination of a knowledge-based/natural-resource strategy that may help to foster innovation in these countries with abundant natural resources to rely on, and in this way, promote long-term human and economic progress. Through the explanation of two cases of countries which have been able to develop successful knowledge systems we show that the concepts natural resources and innovation are potentially mutually reinforcing in promoting development for countries with rich endowments of natural resources. The implications in terms of public policy are related with the usage of a long-term innovation scoreboard, the benchmarking with other successful national innovation systems, and especially the linking of the knowledge system with the development of a strong agro-food system.