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Daniella Sierra Plácido, a BGD Young Voice 2026 and student at EGADE Business School, Tecnológico de Monterrey, argues that emerging economies can strengthen their position in the global economy by investing in their own people. Drawing on the contrasting development trajectories of Mexico and South Korea, as well as her experience in global supply chains, she explores why education, skills, and innovation are essential to building greater economic resilience and international agency.
In 1960, Mexico's per capita GDP was nearly four times that of South Korea. Both were developing economies trying to industrialize, but they started from very different positions. By 1988, South Korea's per capita GDP had surpassed Mexico's for the first time ($8,120 against $7,735). Today, South Korea's GDP per capita is more than two and a half times that of Mexico.
The difference was not geography, natural resources, or luck. Many factors shaped the countries' diverging trajectories, such as export-oriented industrial policy, state-directed credit, the development of large industrial groups like Samsung and Hyundai, and significant U.S. economic and security support. But one difference is particularly relevant today: South Korea made a sustained investment in education, technology and industrial capabilities.
Most conversations about alliances focus on the external: trade deals, geopolitical alignments, multilateral agreements. These definitely matter, but for emerging economies—particularly those in Latin America—the more urgent question is: what kind of partner can a country be if it has not invested in its own people first?
Right now, Latin America has a real window of opportunity. Nearshoring is accelerating, the energy transition is opening new industries, and global companies—including the ones I worked with—are restructuring their supply chains to reduce dependence on a single region. But capturing that opportunity requires something that cannot be built overnight: a skilled workforce, well-equipped institutions, and a real commitment to building knowledge and skills over time.
The countries that will have a real seat at the table in the new era are not necessarily the ones with the most natural resources or the cheapest labor. Those advantages are disappearing fast. They are the ones that can offer talent, technological capacity, and consistency. The numbers speak for themselves. Mexico currently spends just 0.3% of its GDP on R&D, compared to 4.9% in South Korea and 3.1% in Germany. Behind those numbers are decades of different choices about what kind of economy to build. Without serious investment in education and R&D, no trade agreement or diplomatic strategy will be enough to close that gap.
During my experience in supply chain operations at a global manufacturing company in Mexico, I saw this gap play out in real time. We exported to a large part of the world, which meant that every geopolitical shift landed directly in our operations. A new tariff would force us to restructure costs, rethink how we imported and exported products, and move entire production plans to fulfill demand. Over time, I also saw work being progressively moved to countries where production was cheaper, but where workers were also becoming more capable. The jobs that left Mexico shifted to countries with more competitive workforces. And the people affected were not losing work because they lacked effort or dedication; they were losing it because the system around them had not kept pace with what the global economy demanded.
What amazed me most was how uncertain everything felt and how little control we had over it. Political decisions made thousands of miles away would work their way through our operations within weeks. A policy change here, a trade tension there, and suddenly everything we had planned had to be reworked from scratch. A butterfly effect, but one where the butterfly is always somewhere else and the storm always lands in the same places. And on the other end of that chain was a customer who needed the product regardless; managing that uncertainty, knowing a delay was coming because of something no one in the plant had caused or could control, was one of the most clarifying experiences of my professional life.
The problem was not a lack of effort from workers, but a wider policy failure to ensure that skills and institutions kept pace with the changing demands of global production. And the cost of that failure is not paid by the decision-makers who allowed it; it is paid by the workers, the communities, and ultimately the countries that are left with fewer options at the table.
Part of the problem is political. Mexico has directed substantial public resources toward "Jóvenes Construyendo el Futuro," a program for 18–29-year-olds who are neither studying nor working. On paper, the numbers look significant. In practice, the evidence is mixed and incomplete. One assessment reported that only 4 in 10 participants secured employment after completing the program. The program's own evaluation, based on a sample of fewer than 900 people, suggested some positive employment outcomes, but questions remain about the program's longer-term impact on employment and skills development. Its success should therefore be measured not only by the number of participants it reaches, but also by whether they secure stable employment and improve their career prospects over time.
This is not a problem unique to Mexico; versions of it exist across Latin America. But the consequence is serious: a generation growing up without the tools to compete in the economy that is coming. And the people who pay the price are not the politicians who designed these programs, but the young people who were never given a real opportunity to reach their potential.
The impact of these trends shows up in global assessments. In the PISA 2025 results, math and reading scores fell significantly across OECD countries. Mexico and 13 participating Latin American nations ranked below the OECD average in mathematics, reading and science. While performance trends varied across the region, the gap with higher-performing economies persisted. A generation that is falling behind in basic skills is not a generation that will be ready to compete in the economy of the next decade.
South Korea illustrates that the development trajectory can change. In the 1960s and 70s, South Korea was not an obvious candidate to become a global technology powerhouse. It had few natural resources, a recent history of war, and a per capita income beneath Mexico's. What it had was a clear and consistent strategy: invest in education, technology, and R&D, and protect that commitment across governments and decades. It was not only about schools and labs. The state played an active role, and big industrial groups like Samsung and Hyundai were key to the strategy. But at the center was a sustained bet on human capital and innovation that paid off across decades.
Latin America has the ingredients to do the same. The talent is there, in universities, in companies, in the next generation eager to compete. What is missing is not potential. The gap is between intention and execution and between policies announced and results delivered. That is why the countries that commit today will have real leverage in the alliances of tomorrow. The ones that don't will keep watching others make decisions that affect them.
The alliances that will define the next era are not only being built in foreign ministries and trade negotiating rooms. They are being built in classrooms, universities, and research labs. That is why the countries that invest in their people are the ones that will shape those alliances, not just participate in them. That will be the difference between being the countries that absorb the consequences of others´ decisions and being the ones who help make them.
For Latin America, this means treating education, technology and R&D not as a social expense, but as the starting point for how the region competes in the world. It means protecting those commitments from the priorities that change every six years, through cross-party agreements and budgets that outlast any single administration. And it means designing programs that are measured not just by how many people are enrolled in them, but by what happens to them ten years later.
The most powerful alliance an emerging economy can build is the one it makes with its own next generation. South Korea made that alliance sixty years ago. Latin America still needs to make this commitment today if it wants to thrive in the world of tomorrow.
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