Driving Sustainability with More and Better Talent: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean

Latin America and the Caribbean could create millions of jobs but only if we develop the right skills to turn this opportunity into sustainable growth and equity.

• This transformation could create up to 15 million new jobs in LAC by 2030, especially in renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and electromobility.
• A growing gap between the demand for skills for sustainability and the current workforce threatens to limit this opportunity.
• The IDB proposes a four-step strategy-sector selection, learning pathways, training solutions, and quality assurance-backed by regional initiatives already leading the way.

atin America and the Caribbean are betting on sustainability, shifting how the region produces, consumes, and creates jobs. This transformation, driven by new technologies, emerging sectors, and more sustainable development models, brings huge opportunities, but leveraging them requires one key ingredient: a workforce with the right skills.

A Sustainable Transition: Both an Opportunity and a Challenge

The region faces a dual challenge. On the one hand, it's one of the most vulnerable areas to natural disasters and higher temperatures (Bagolle et al., 2023). On the other, it holds strategic advantages to build a greener economy-rich in natural resources, home to key reserves like lithium, and blessed with vast biodiversity.

In this context, the shift toward low-carbon, sustainable economies represents a historic opportunity to boost growth, create jobs, and reduce inequality. If the right policies are put in place, Latin America and the Caribbean could create up to 15 million net new jobs by 2030, particularly in sectors like renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and electromobility (Saget et al., 2020).

Skills: The Missing Link in the Sustainability Puzzle

But creating these jobs-and making sure they're good ones-takes more than natural resources and technology investments. It requires people with the right skills to succeed in this new green economy.

Right now, there's a significant gap between the skills demanded by the green transition and what the current workforce offers. In Panama, for example, nearly half of solar energy companies struggle to find qualified workers (Prada and Rucci, 2025). In Ecuador, training programs in sustainable mobility are limited and poorly coordinated (TRNTARYET, 2022).

This mismatch isn't unique to the region. A LinkedIn report showed that between 2022 and 2023, global job postings for green roles rose by 23%, while green skills in the workforce only grew by 12% (2023). In Latin America and the Caribbean, this gap could quickly become a major bottleneck for sustainable development.

Four Steps to Building a Green Skills Strategy

To address this, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) offers a practical roadmap for designing green skills strategies based on real-world experiences from across the region. The guide lays out four essential steps:

1. Select strategic sectors:
   Focus on sectors with the biggest potential to reduce emissions, create jobs, and align with national goals. The selection should be based on solid data and clear criteria, such as climate vulnerability or technological investment.

1. Design learning pathways:
   Once priority sectors are set, build learning paths that directly address the identified skills gaps. These pathways should be flexible, coherent, and adapted to each country's context.

1. Implement training solutions:
   Programs should be delivered through a mix of formats-online, in-person, or hybrid-and should include modular certifications and be integrated into national technical education and vocational training systems.

1. Ensure the quality and continuous improvement of training solutions:
   A solid strategy needs mechanisms to guarantee quality at every stage-from training design to delivery. This includes evaluation systems, alignment with broader initiatives, and consistency with qualification frameworks, accreditation standards, and evaluation protocols.

Eight Regional Initiatives Leading the Way

Beyond the blueprint, several countries in the region are already putting these ideas into action. The report highlights eight examples of how local governments and organizations are training today and tomorrow's workers for a sustainable economy:

• Belize launched its first national renewable energy certification program, with over 30 courses focused on the green and blue economies.

• Uruguay defined nine professional profiles and 47 competencies in electromobility, in partnership with public and private stakeholders.

• Panama is using mobile classrooms to retrain energy sector workers and help them adapt to new technologies.

• Chile's RELINK platform uses AI to guide workers and businesses toward the most in-demand skills in sustainable sectors.

These cases show the transition is already underway. But to scale the impact, more countries need to adopt comprehensive strategies to build green talent.

A Call to Action

The shift toward sustainable economies can't happen without people who are prepared to lead it. Skills are not just about employability, they're key drivers of innovation, productivity, and social equity. Latin America and the Caribbean have both the opportunity and the responsibility to get ahead of the curve. Because training green talent today means securing a more sustainable, fair, and resilient future for the region.

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