The R&D Gap Is Latin America’s Largest Lever: 0.57% of GDP and the Instruments That Move It
Latin America and the Caribbean spend 0.57% of GDP on research and development against a 1.92% global average on UNESCO’s 2026 release. Raising that level is the highest-value policy move available to the region, and the instruments that would raise it are already running in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.