The European Union - Latin America and the Caribbean Global Gateway Investment Agenda (GGIA) highlights potential investment projects to help address the region's infrastructure needs, while creating local added value and promoting growth, jobs and social cohesion. The EU-LAC Global Gateway Investment Agenda is a political commitment to work together, identifying fair green and digital investment opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will benefit from the open environment generated by trade and investment agreements and will help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Investment Agenda revolves around the following pillars
- a fair green transition
- an inclusive digital transformation
- human development
- health resilience and vaccines
The EU-LAC Global Gateway Investment Agenda will be delivered through Team Europe initiatives: the EU, its Member States, development financing institutions including the European Investment Bank (EIB), export credit agencies and all other public sources of funding will be working together in public-private partnerships with the private sector.
A fair green transition
The LAC region benefits from peculiar environmental and geographical diversity, making it the region with the largest share of renewables in the world. On this basis, one of the main objectives of the Investment Agenda is speeding up a fair green transition in the region.
Energy transition and strategic autonomy will be pursued thanks to the development and deployment of renewables (wind, solar, renewable hydrogen), the improvement of energy efficiency and savings, and the provision of accessibility (last kilometre access) and quality of energy supply.
As part of its strategy to meet the Paris Agreement’s targets, LAC wants to focus, amongst other things, on
- zero-emission mobility thanks to the fostering of e-mobility and the upgrading of public transport systems
- climate financing through support for taxonomies and green bonds to attract international investors and to help local capital markets transition to sustainable sources of finance
- investing in critical raw materials and joint value chains to meet the growing demand while ensuring reliable access to resources and promoting high social and environmental standards
An inclusive digital transformation
LAC happens to be the region with the largest digital divide in the world. To tackle this challenge, the GGIA aims at proposing concrete steps to achieve digital transformation and innovation while ensuring a shared commitment to a human-centric vision of the digital economy and society.
The digital transition will focus on four main strains:
- investment support for 5G and last-kilometre connectivity
- support for inclusive digital transformation projects that making digitalization more accessible whilst competitive for specific industries
- support for investment projects that promote digitalisation of public administration, health services and education and research institutions
- promotion of an enabling environment, including regulatory frameworks (data governance, protection, e-governance protection), norms and standards (good governance), cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence
GG investments will also be facilitated through the EU-LAC Digital Alliance. Launched in March 2023, this joint initiative brings together key actors from both the public and private sectors to put the EU and LAC at the forefront of an inclusive digital transformation. A regional Copernicus strategy will enhance LAC countries’ resilience by supporting their spatial data management. The backbones of the EU-LAC Digital Alliance will be fundamental freedoms, rule of law and democratic principles, the protection of privacy and personal data and support for a free, open, safe, and secure global internet.
Human development
The fair green and digital transition which is at the heart of the GGIA will also be achieved thanks to investments in education, vocational trainings and skills development. The Investment Agenda will contribute to reinforcing good governance, social dialogue and corporate social responsibility by promoting investments with a strong focus on social issues
- creation of decent jobs and formal employment
- technology sharing
- education and vocational training
- gender equality
Health resilience and vaccines
Biotechnology is one of the great potentials in the region. With the aim of reaching regional autonomy and strengthening health systems resilience, the GGIA supports and reinforces existing bi-regional work with the new EU-LAC partnership on local manufacturing of vaccines, medicines and other health technologies. This contributes to the UN ECLAC Plan for self-sufficiency in health matters in LAC, endorsed at the CELAC Summit in Buenos Aires.
Special focus will be also put on investments on digital health, as well as strengthening medicine regulatory systems.
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