Some of the answers to the development challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean may lie in the hands of creatives, designers, artists, and entrepreneurs.

The report The Orange Economy: Innovations You May Not Know Are from Latin America and the Caribbean, published by the IDB’s strategic sector for creative economies, innovation, and entrepreneurship, is a clear, illustrative compilation of initiatives and projects from Latin America that are impacting people’s lives through the so-called creative economy.

The report focuses on what is known as the Orange Economy, which the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) defines as interconnected activities through which ideas are transformed into cultural goods and services whose value is determined through intellectual property.

The methodology used was a mapping process that focused on gathering information about innovations in the creative and cultural industries that use new models and take new approaches to problems in different parts of Latin America and Caribbean. The emphasis of the study is on technological innovations. The authors identified specific entrepreneurial projects in the fields of architecture, handcrafts, design, media, fashion, music, creative services, and software and digital platforms.

The Orange Economy is sparking more and more interest within the development agendas of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. This is not only because strengthening such activities drives economic growth by creating value, but also because these initiatives converge into innovation systems that are linked to sectors that are priorities for the region.

The Orange Economy accounted for 1.9 million jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2015.

 

Luzardo, A.; De Jesús, D.; Pérez, M. The Orange Economy: Innovations You May Not Know Are from Latin America and the Caribbean. IDB, 2017.