Locations
People
UNDP’s role in strengthening inclusive and competitive value chains in the region
In LAC, UNDP’s Inclusive Value Chains Programme drives initiatives that strengthen productive chains in an inclusive and sustainable way. The programme helps companies improve their production, management practices, and access new markets, while also promoting inclusion and sustainability. By connecting small producers and microenterprises with larger buyers and markets, the Programme contributes to increased productivity, income generation, and resilience among vulnerable groups.
In Mexico, where the initiative originated, the Supplier Development Programme worked with anchor companies in strategic sectors to integrate local SMEs into their supply chains, creating stronger, more resilient, and inclusive linkages and boosting the competitiveness of these suppliers in national and international markets.
In Ecuador, the Digital In Motion initiative was implemented in partnership with local governments to support hundreds of microenterprises in adopting digital tools, sustainable environmental practices, and gender equality measures in their operations, enabling them to adapt to the post-pandemic context and access new markets more resiliently.
In Colombia, in partnership with the School Feeding Programme, UNDP provided technical assistance to rural cooperatives, helping them improve standards of traceability, sustainability, and visibility as local suppliers, and demonstrating how school canteens can serve as platforms for productive inclusion and territorial development.
In Peru, the Growing Your Business methodology has trained local consultants who accompany microenterprises, cooperatives, and producer associations in restructuring their business models with a focus on sustainability and risk management, supporting their recovery after the pandemic while strengthening productive and financial capacities.
Taken together, these initiatives reflect UNDP’s role in strengthening inclusive and competitive value chains in the region, supporting governments and communities to enhance inclusion, resilience, and sustainability, while advancing progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
Support to local communities
UNDP supports local actors—including local governments, communities, and SMEs—in designing and implementing integrated solutions that connect social protection with livelihoods, skills development, and access to services.
By linking social protection with Local Economic Development (LED), UNDP promotes favorable ecosystems, productive inclusion, and opportunities for vulnerable groups in their own territories. Territorial strategies are key to reducing inequalities, strengthening resilience, and advancing the SDGs at the local level, while also helping to translate national social protection policies into concrete actions that address the specific needs of women, youth, indigenous peoples, and other vulnerable groups.
For instance, in Guatemala UNDP supported national and local governments to identify LED opportunities within territorial and budget planning processes; in Venezuela, UNDP explored the feasibility of promoting LED tools such as Local Economic Development Agencies. At the global level, UNDP co-organizes the World Forums on Local Economic Development to promote dialogue, solutions exchange and the advancement of public policies in this area.
Changing people's lives through digital solutions
UNDP’s work on social protection in LAC includes the efforts on the development and implementation of digital solutions, which serve as a gateway for improving livelihoods and quality of life through social, financial, and/or digital inclusion, paying special attention to women and vulnerable groups.
As a example, the 2025 Poverty and Inequality Funding Windows call implemented projects that focused on Digital Public Infrastructure to improve the social protection prioritization of over 20 million people in Brazil and over 9 million people in Peru, as well as to set up of technical basis for similar development in Ecuador; the facilitation gender- and disability-sensitive job-matching of the Public Employment Service in Colombia; the full digital access of over 15 public services and the facilitation of over 320 public services for citizens in Cuba; and the testing of biometric identification and payment systems, financial education, and financial inclusion of women-led households in the Dominican Republic.
UNDP puts people at the center of its social protection interventions, leveraging technological advances, including digital solutions, and working with innovative and proven instruments to improve people’s lives.
