Latin America risks ¡°losing another century¡± if its universities cannot help train its workforce in time to reap the rewards of new technologies, it has been warned.

William Maloney, chief economist for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank, said the biggest problem facing the region was a lack of growth, which is currently stuck at about 2 per cent per year.

Speaking at?ÌÇÐÄVlog¡¯²õ?Latin America Universities Summit 2025, he said ¡°persistent problems with poverty and lack of dynamism¡± are not recent and can be traced back to the 1850s.

Countries such as Finland and Japan, which had a similar level of income, ¡°took off¡±, while Latin America ¡°stagnated¡± from a failure to diversify, a lack of dynamism and loss of control in key industries such as mining, textiles or iron.

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By 1900, Sweden and Denmark had five times the level of engineers that Latin America did, which Maloney said was a ¡°proxy for the sophistication of local universities¡± and resulted in the region ¡°losing the 20th?century¡±.

Fewer engineers meant emerging technologies took more time to be adopted and directly led to its low productivity growth, he told delegates at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

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¡°It leads to loss of dynamism in the key industries, and it also means that we missed a lot of the new industries that were coming out of the 20th-century industrial revolution.¡±

But a century later, Maloney said he was worried that the region is still ¡°less prepared to exploit 21st-century technologies¡±,?such as artificial intelligence (AI).

¡°We don¡¯t want to miss the AI wave. We have to have our universities be stronger and¡­they need to be more integrated with the private sector.

¡°There¡¯²õ very little interaction between the private sector and universities and that has effects on the kinds of human capital that we generate for the universities, but?also the research partnerships to help ensure?that we have firms that are more dynamic and can actually export.¡±

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Maloney said the solution is not as simple as demanding more money from governments for research and development but requires a better ¡°underlying learning network¡± involving schools, universities and the private sector.

¡°I think we have a major challenge if we want to ensure that this century doesn¡¯t look like the last one.

¡°We¡¯re having again a wave of new technologies that we have to be able to take advantage of and implement in our economies and if we don¡¯t have the universities as major partners in this development process, then we¡¯re going to miss out.¡±

Daniela Salgado, director of research at Universidad Panamericana, said Mexico had a chance to capitalise on its young population but warned the?opportunity was largely missed?as a result of?insufficient investment in human capital.

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¡°The economic implications are profound and inescapable. Future economic growth can no longer [come from] a steady increase in the number of workers to maintain and increase prosperity, growth must come from an increase in productivity.

¡°That is from the ability of each worker to generate more value. It doesn¡¯t mean to work more, but to be worthy¡­and that¡¯²õ our main purpose in universities.¡±

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patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com