Caribbean & Central America - September 2013 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Global competitiveness index: On 4 September the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) released its 2013-2014 Global Competitiveness Report which showed that “after three years of sharp rises in the competitiveness rankings, Panama consolidates its position at 40^th place as the most competitive economy in Central America, and second in Latin America, behind Chile”. The report notes that Panama has been “relentlessly improving its infrastructure (7^th), with one of the best port (6^th) and airport (5^th) networks, closely aligning with its overall economic development strategy of becoming a major transport hub for the region. Its financial market (16^th) and an assessment of its technological adoption (11^th) are also persistently improving, especially via foreign multinational corporations setting up operations in the country”. The report also highlights that Panama has made progress “in addressing some of its most pressing challenges, notably in terms of improving the quality of education, where it has moved to 75^th place from 112^th last year”.

Teachers’ strikes: The WEF’s praise vis-à-vis education follows teachers’ unrest which began in late July and continued off and on until 24 August when a deal was reached between nine teachers’ unions and the education ministry (Meduca). The nub of the dispute, which affected over 20,000 students, was over an executive decree (D-920) issued in October 2012, which unions like the Asociación de Profesores de la República de Panamá (Asoprof) claimed could lead to the privatisation of the sector. Unions complained that D-920 would establish a new “subjective” system of teacher evaluations that could jeopardise job security as well as introduce other changes indicative of a ‘market-oriented’ approach to education. The repeal of D-920 was published in the official gazette on 12 August, but unions continued the strikes until the government agreed in writing that the teachers would not face sanctions for the unrest and would be paid for making up for lost time.

• Challenges for Panama

In its 2013-2014 Global Competitiveness Report, the World Economic Forum (WEF) notes that Panama still faces important challenges in terms of “strengthening the functioning of its institutions (66^th), fighting corruption (80^th) and crime (115^th), and improving trust in politicians (94^th) and the independence of the judiciary system (118^th)”.  The WEF also highlights as important the need to “continue improving the quality of education, notably in terms of math and science (114^th), which will be necessary in order to better develop local technological capacity”.