In September 2024, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) presented the first edition of its new flagship publication Panorama of Productive Development Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2024.1 This document fills a gap in the Commission’s catalogue of publications, which until now has not featured a regular publication addressing one of its flagship themes over the years: productive development.

This report is even more important in the context of the recent ECLAC statement that Latin America and the Caribbean faces three development traps: weak capacity for growth; high inequality, low social mobility and weak social cohesion; and low institutional capacity and ineffective governance. In order to emerge from the development crisis caused by these traps, ECLAC has argued that 11 great transformations are needed in the region’s development model, one of which is related to the central theme of Panorama of Productive Development Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2024: the need to scale up and improve productive development policies in the countries of the region and their territories based on a new vision of such policies.