Latin American economies

Last week I attended the 39th General Assembly of ALIDE - Asociacion Latinoamericana de Instituciones Financieras para el Desarrollo - including the Caribbean. While Caribbean economies are well-known to me, it was a welcome refresher in Latin American economies.
The key take-aways for me were:

1. between 2000 and 2007 poverty in Latin America was reduced by 10%, meaning that 40 million people rose out of poverty.

2. if you want to know what the future areas of growth will be, examine what the main research areas in U.S. universities are. Now these are energy, and water

3. in Latin America also the growth in tourism can be exponential with targeted investments in tourism, as the case of North Eastern Brazil shows.

So, it leads me to think how small economies can use this knowledge to their advantage.