The Mesoamerican Region

The Central American economic integration process, which dates back to the 1950s, entered a new era in 2001 with the launching of the Puebla Panama Plan. This plan helped shift the focus to the greater “Mesoamerican region” (MAR), which includes the seven Central American countries plus the nine southeastern states of Mexico. In this context, the OECD Territorial Review of the Mesoamerican Region marks two major firsts: a comprehensive regional development study of the entire Mesoamerican region and the OECD’s first ever multi-national territorial review. This review recognizes that economic integration per se is just part of the solution to the Mesoamerican region’s challenges. Realising the economic potential of the MAR requires regional policies that can better exploit its many comparative advantages and better governance at mesoregional, national and local levels. The MAR could spur development through inclusive competitiveness policies that address cross-cutting measures for all firms, such as improving the region’s human capital, firms’ quality standards and networks between cities, as well as specific policies for promising sectors, including tourism, agro-industry, light manufacturing and logistics. To achieve true bottom-up economic integration, the review looks at improving the limited capacity at the sub-national levels to effectively and efficiently provide local public goods. Recommendations for governance reform include: improving co-ordination across borders and between levels of government within the same borders; strengthening administrative and planning capacity at the national and sub-national levels; reforming regional governance institutions and introducing territorial development policies.Countries/regions covered :- The nine federal states of the southeast region of Mexico: Campeche, Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatan- The seven Central American countries: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.The OECD Territorial Review of the Mesoamerican Region is integrated into a wider programme of national territorial reviews undertaken by the OECD Territorial Development Policy Committee. The overall aim of these reviews is to provide practical policy advice to governments focusing on multi-level governance and regional competitiveness.