Trust in public institutions is essential for enabling countries to implement meaningful reforms that deliver for citizens and to navigate crises. Yet, public trust has declined in Latin America since the 2008 global financial crisis, eroding particularly after episodes of social unrest marked by persistent inequalities that continue to strain the social fabric. Rebuilding public trust in the region is crucial for promoting inclusive growth, reinforcing democratic institutions, and ensuring effective governance. In this session, the OECD secretariat will present main results of the 2025 OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean, the first regional exercise of the Global Trust Survey Project. The survey examines how trust in public institutions is influenced by people's perceptions of government competence, integrity, openness, and fairness—both in everyday interactions with institutions and in broader decision-making processes on complex challenges. The report provides innovative evidence and suggests policy actions based on the findings from nearly 18 000 responses across ten LAC countries.

The digital transformation is driving efforts to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of public sector operations, including the delivery of proactive and personalised public services. In an era where governments are expected to do more with less, digital government policies are providing solutions to deliver faster and better services. The OECD Digital Government Index for LAC and the report “The Strategic and Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector of Latin America and the Caribbean” show that countries are leveraging digital technologies and AI across the public sector but require more solid efforts to enable more productive and efficient governments. For example, the DGI LAC indicates that countries are lagging in the development of common building blocks for a more integrated and efficient digital transformation. This includes key digital public infrastructure, such as digital identity and data sharing systems, that break down institutional siloes and enable the delivery of integrated services. Furthermore, to establish strong enablers and safeguards that promote adoption while ensuring its safe, secure, and trustworthy use by public institutions, including targeted actions to reduce digital divides and ensure that no one is left behind in the digital transition. This session will explore how governments are leveraging digital government, including AI, to reshape the way public institutions operate and serve citizens. It will present ongoing efforts to strengthen government capabilities for the digital transition, real-world applications of AI in governments in LAC, and the challenges for its strategic and responsible use.

Countries are increasingly focused on closing infrastructure gaps in energy, transport, water, and telecommunications, essential for enhancing productivity, reducing costs, and improving access to services and resilience to natural hazards. However, projects often face challenges like time delays, cost overruns, and integrity issues. planning and delivery to ensure projects are efficient, transparent, resilient and aligned with value-for-money principles. Building on the OECD Recommendations on the Governance of Infrastructure and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), the session will highlight best practices for enhancing institutional frameworks, pursuing fit-for-purpose infrastructure buyers, and fostering investor confidence. Given current fiscal and capacity constraints, attracting and sustaining private investment is increasingly essential, but there are also limits to what private participation can achieve and it is important to determine when and how private engagement can take place vis-à-vis alternative public infrastructure delivery and operation governance models. The session will examine the critical governance conditions to consider in determining delivery models and how to increase the capacities of infrastructure buyers to manage private participation in infrastructure solutions and alternative public infrastructure delivery and operation models, while also reflecting on lessons learned from past PPP and concession experiences in the region.

Public integrity is a cornerstone of good governance and sustainable development. It fosters trust between governments and citizens, supports fair and inclusive economic growth, and enhances the quality and efficiency of public service delivery. On the contrary, the lack of integrity in public decision-making, in the form of corruption or other unethical practices, has generally corrosive effects It impedes the effective delivery of public services and use of limited public funds, threatens inclusive growth, perpetuates inequality and poverty, allows organised crime to operate, can exacerbate political polarisation and undermines democracy and public trust in governments. Investing in public integrity is therefore a condition for ensuring impact across several policy objectives and to regain people’s trust. In infrastructure management, promoting integrity at each stage of the life cycle is crucial to countering corruption risks. In turn, artificial intelligence is started to being used to improve integrity policies by some countries in Latin America but comes along with its own challenges. The LAC Action Plan Integrity for Good Governance, launched in 2018, provides strategic guidance to advance in building a culture of integrity in the LAC region. Over the past decade, countries in the region have developed several public integrity instruments –anti-corruption regulations, strategies, co-ordination mechanisms, integrity plans, manuals and guides, etc.– that are based on OECD standards, shifting the discussion from ‘fighting corruption’ to ‘promoting a culture of public integrity’. Yet, the OECD Public Integrity Indicators show that the gap between countries’ legal and regulatory frameworks and their implementation in practice, is high in the region, often preventing from achieving the desired impacts. This session will allow countries to provide a stocktaking on the implementation of the LAC Action Plan, share good practices and identify where further collective and national efforts should be led, benefiting all countries involved.

Closing infrastructure gaps in energy, transport, water, and telecommunications, is essential for enhancing productivity, reducing costs, and improving access to services for vulnerable groups, as well as to build resilience to natural hazards. However, the governance of infrastructure projects often faces challenges like time delays, cost overruns, and integrity issues. The OECD Recommendations on Infrastructure Governance and Public Governance of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) offer an opportunity for LAC countries to enhance governance standards and ensure infrastructure delivery is guided by value for money principles. Furthermore, in a context where fiscal space is limited, a robust framework to leverage private investment is a must. This session will address what LAC countries are doing to strengthen the governance of infrastructure and, particularly, to attract and secure private investment.