Building Biotechnology Governance from the Ground Up: Lessons from Central America

Daniel Domínguez Gómez

July 2025

Latin America holds 60% of the world's biodiversity, yet we lag dramatically in biotechnology development. This paradox has haunted me throughout my career: how can the most biodiverse region on Earth remain a bystander in the biological revolution?

Over the past two years, I've had the privilege of confronting this question directly through BioXPol, a capacity-building program co-created with the United Nations University's Biotechnology Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNU-BIOLAC). Our mission was straightforward but ambitious: train public officials across Central America to govern emerging biotechnologies with foresight, not fear.

The results have exceeded our expectations, and offered crucial lessons about what it takes to build biotechnology governance in regions typically excluded from global tech policy conversations.

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(EN) BioXPol Strategic Insights Report.pdf

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The Problem: A Governance Gap

In 2024, as I began planning BioXPol's implementation in Guatemala and Panama, the challenge was clear. Both countries possessed rich biological resources and growing interest in biotechnology, yet lacked the institutional capacity to translate that potential into policy. Decision-makers, from ministry officials to legislators, often viewed biotechnology as either too complex to understand or too risky to embrace.

This wasn't about lacking intelligence or commitment. The Guatemalan congressman who asked me whether transgenic crops taste like fish wasn't being ridiculous, he was being honest about a knowledge gap that pervades public institutions across the region. Without basic biotechnology literacy, even the most well-intentioned officials struggle to design policies that balance innovation with safety, economic opportunity with social equity.

The concept we built BioXPol around is anticipatory governance: the ability to imagine future scenarios and make informed decisions before impacts materialize. This requires not just technical knowledge, but ethical, social, and regulatory frameworks that guarantee safe, fair, and inclusive technological development.

The Approach: Learning by Doing

We designed BioXPol as a hybrid program combining eight virtual modules with intensive in-person workshops. The curriculum covered everything from scientific foundations to bioeconomy, biosafety, bioethics, and biomanufacturing. But the real innovation was methodological: rather than lecturing, we used Latin American case studies, policy-making simulations, and collaborative foresight exercises.

Each edition was co-created with local partners, Guatemala's and Panama's National Secretariats of Science and Technology, ensuring contextual relevance. Participants weren't passive learners; they were active designers of their countries' biotechnology futures.

The face-to-face workshops became particularly powerful moments. In Guatemala City and Panama City, I watched as ministry officials, regulators, legislators, and civil society representatives, people who rarely share the same room, collaboratively built national biotechnology roadmaps. The exercises forced them to think 10, 15, 20 years ahead: What will our agricultural systems look like? How do we regulate gene editing? What does a bioeconomy mean for our rural communities?

The Results: More Than Numbers

The quantitative results are significant: 128 participants trained across 20 public institutions, representing key ministries (Agriculture, Health, Environment, Economy), legislative advisors, regulators, and representatives from civil society and international organizations.

But the qualitative impact tells a richer story:

In Guatemala, the Ministry of Economy publicly highlighted BioXPol's success, positioning biotechnology as a strategic priority for national development. What struck me most was watching officials who arrived skeptical leave as advocates, not for uncritical technology adoption, but for informed, strategic engagement with biotechnology's possibilities and risks.

In Panama, the National Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation (SENACYT) used the program's momentum to catalyze development of a national bioeconomy roadmap. The program strengthened Panama's Intersectoral Biosafety Commission and opened sustained spaces for cross-sectoral dialogue that didn't exist before.

Perhaps most importantly, we validated something I've long suspected: there are public officials across Latin America with transformative vision, eager to learn, collaborate, and lead long-term change. They've been waiting for the right tools and spaces to do so.

Key Lessons Learned

1. Bioliteracy is a democratizing tool. When decision-makers understand the science, they make better policy. When they understand the stakes, they engage more deeply.

   
   

2. Diversity enriches policy design. The mix of profiles in our working groups—scientists, economists, lawyers, health officials—produced more nuanced, inclusive policy proposals than any homogeneous group could.

   
   

3. Context matters. Generic biotechnology training doesn't work. Materials must be adapted to local realities, using regional examples and addressing specific national challenges.

   
   

4. Demand for deeper engagement is real. Participants consistently requested more advanced, sector-specific training. The appetite for knowledge far exceeds current supply.

   
   

5. Institutional partnership is non-negotiable. Local government buy-in transforms a program from an external intervention into a national priority.

   
   

The Path Forward

BioXPol's success has clarified what comes next. We're expanding to Argentina in 2025, with support from UNU-BIOLAC, and exploring partnerships with the Inter-American Development Bank to create asynchronous versions accessible to broader audiences.

But expansion isn't enough. We need to build a regional community of practice, connecting graduates, experts, and institutional allies to share learning and resources. We need advanced modules for specific sectors. We need monitoring mechanisms that ensure training translates into actual policy change.

Most fundamentally, we need to shift the narrative: Latin America cannot remain merely a biodiversity supplier for the Global North's biotechnology industry. We have the talent, resources, and vision to build our own biotechnology governance frameworks that serve our communities, protect our environments, and advance our development on our own terms.

A Personal Reflection

Working on BioXPol has reinforced my conviction that the most critical technology policy challenges aren't purely technical, they're about capacity, access, and voice. Who gets to participate in shaping biotechnology's future? Whose concerns are heard? Whose knowledge is valued?

The program has shown me that when you create the right spaces and provide the right tools, public officials in Guatemala City or Panama City can think as strategically and ambitiously about biotechnology governance as anyone in Washington, Brussels, or Beijing. The difference isn't capability, it's opportunity and resources.

As biotechnology races forward globally, with gene editing, synthetic biology, and AI-driven biodesign advancing faster than governance structures, regions like Latin America face a choice: remain passive consumers of technologies designed elsewhere, or become active architects of our biotechnological futures.

BioXPol is a small but significant step toward the latter. It's an invitation for Latin America to stop being only a source of biodiversity and become a protagonist in the global biotechnology story.

The question isn't whether we have what it takes. We do. The question is whether we'll invest in building the capacity to use it.