spending are clear: life expectancy in LAC compares favorably to other EMDE regions, the region has about twice the number of physicians per capita of the average EMDE, and vaccination rates are generally high. Nonetheless, there are important areas where improvement has been slow. In 2017, ECA, EAP, and MNA all had lower maternal mortality rates, which have fallen only slowly in LAC since 2000. Similarly, while LAC was the EMDE region with the highest proportion of the population covered for essential health services in 2000, it has since seen the slowest improvement on this metric and has been overtaken by EAP and ECA. The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare shortcomings in regional healthcare systems, with LAC su ff ering a disproportionate death toll, likely re fl ecting inequitable healthcare access (Schwalb et al. 2022). The region also continues to lag in aspects of public health infrastructure; the proportion of the population with access to well-managed sanitation services is below the EMDE average.

Investing in improved public health infrastructure and services for low-income groups is likely to be a cost e ff ective way to improve health outcomes and boost human capital. Recent studies of countries including Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Paraguay suggest that improving sanitation in rural and low-income communities should be a priority (World Bank 2018b-c, 2021d, 2022h). Investments that raise the e ffi ciency of healthcare provision could also free up resources for other sectors. This is likely to be important in coming decades given low productivity growth and growing demand in the healthcare sector, and the increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases. Indeed, model-based estimates indicate that per capita health spending in LAC is set to grow faster than GDP at least up to 2050 (Rao et al. 2022). The region can meet its future healthcare demands at lower cost by investing in primary care facilities and triage capacity (including telemedicine), preventative public health interventions, and better information and data systems—all of which would lessen the burdens on governments and households (Savedo ff et al. 2022).

Green transition. LAC economies could bene fi t substantially from the global transition toward greener forms of energy and broader emissions reduction. The region is endowed with a large proportion of the known reserves of several minerals and metals needed for electrifying transport and scaling up renewable energy technologies. For example, LAC is the location of roughly half of the world’s lithium reserves (mainly in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, though Bolivia has the largest known lithium resources in the world), more than a third of copper reserves (Chile, Peru, Mexico), and over a fi fth of rare earth reserves (Brazil), as well as signi fi cant amounts of nickel, manganese and graphite (USGS 2021af). However, the e ffi cient extraction and processing of green minerals will require largescale capital investment and improved technological methods to ensure sustainability. Chile is the only country in LAC that currently exports substantial amounts of lithium, and there are signi fi cant concerns about potential strain on water supplies from using water in the extraction of lithium from brine (IEA 2022). In addition to sustainably expanding extractive capacity, which could further entrench primary commodity export dominance in LAC, several governments in the region have ambitions to foster domestic green industries down the value chain, including electric vehicle and battery