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.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping public governance, offering unprecedented opportunities to enhance productivity, responsiveness, and accountability. For governments in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), AI represents a powerful lever to transform how institutions operate and deliver services. Yet, realising this potential requires more than isolated pilots—it demands solid digital foundations, coherent strategies, and inclusive, trustworthy implementation. The region has made notable progress in laying these foundations. Most LAC countries have adopted national digital government strategies, enacted enabling legislation, and developed core platforms to modernise public administration. The OECD–IDB 2023 Digital Government Index confirms this momentum, across key dimensions such as digital-by-design, data-driven public sector, and user-driven services. However, the challenge ahead is to convert these digital foundations into tangible gains in government efficiency, service quality, and public trust. This session will explore how governments in LAC are leveraging digital government and AI to make governments more agile and improve public services. It will be framed by the presentation of the OECD global report on Governing with AI which provides new evidence on adoption trends, strategic approaches, and emerging risks and opportunities across the region. The session will highlight ongoing efforts to strengthen government capabilities for the digital transition, showcase real-world applications of AI in government processes and public services, and discuss the challenges of scaling its use in a strategic and responsible manner.

Infrastructure is central to every country’s pursuit of economic growth, well-being, and sustainable development. A critical aspect of robust infrastructure governance is ensuring countries have the tools and capacities to assess whether infrastructure proposals can deliver value-for-money. This is of the highest importance in the Latin American region given i) fiscal constraints, ii) persistent inequalities, and iii) high exposure to natural and climate disasters. These conditions then call to make the most of the limited resources for infrastructure investment and to ground such decisions in evidence. Indeed, thoughtful and evidence-based appraisal and selection supports long-term objectives such as economic resilience, environmental sustainability, and social equity and represent a bridge between such high-level policy priorities and investment projects. Furthermore, embedding evidence-based project selection and prioritisation in decision-making ensures accountability and breeds trust as infrastructure authorities can justify their investment decisions. This session will discuss how Latin American countries can leverage infrastructure appraisal and selection methodologies to tackle persistent gaps and maximise the benefits from public investments, while mitigating risks. Likewise, it will discuss the enablers and experiences in using such methodologies and creating capacities to deliver value-for-money.

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.

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. Given current fiscal and capacity constraints, attracting and sustaining private investment is essential, but there are also limits to what private participation can achieve and it is important to determine when and how private engagement can be a better choice to alternative public infrastructure delivery and operation governance models. Notably, not all infrastructure undertakings are prone to private investment but there are certain conditions, for example, market characteristics, that would make PPPs more likely to deliver value-for-money. Furthermore, the challenges faced in the Latin American countries, such as uncertainty at the bidding stage and credible commitment to contracts, differ from those across OECD countries. Taking advantage of the ongoing process to review the OECD Recommendation on Principles for Public Governance of Public-Private Partnerships, this session will examine the critical governance conditions to consider in determining the convenience of delivery models involving private participation, particularly PPP, and how to increase the capacities of infrastructure buyers to manage private participation in infrastructure solutions, while also reflecting on lessons learned from past PPP and concession experiences in the region.