The multibillion-dollar megaprojects in both countries illustrate how the tensions between development, bureaucracy, and ecology are determining the region’s future. In the context of Latin America’s imperative of modernization, megaprojects in Costa Rica and Chile have become case studies in the challenge to balance development and preservation, economic growth, and ecological and social balance. Two such cases, which have kept a close eye on the strategic pillars of each country, represent the dilemma of nations whose wealth is concentrated on environmental and social responsibility. The vulnerability of large investments that depend on public-private partnerships, energy policy, and digital transformation reveals the underlying challenges of the region’s development model.
Costa Rica’s Megaprojects Bet and its Suspension
In Costa Rica, the so-called megaprojects package, valued at almost US$2 billion, would have included a series of energy, infrastructure, and logistics projects aimed at consolidating Costa Rica as a country of sustainable and responsible investment in recent years. However, the government of President Rodrigo Chaves ordered a technical review and suspended their implementation under the premise of ensuring transparency, which generated unease in the private sector of a country that has long positioned itself as a safe haven for foreign investment. The official explanation given is one of control and commitment to efficiency, but some analysts have described the measure as destabilizing for investors, especially in a small economy that has based its marketing strategy on predictability and responsible environmental management.
The economic package suspended by the executive includes projects considered essential for long-term competitiveness: port expansion, renewable energy, and road improvements to connect industrial parks to export terminals, as well as initiatives in high-growth sectors of national production. According to private chambers of commerce in Costa Rica, the stoppage means a loss to the economy of several hundred million dollars and the stagnation of job creation in areas traditionally dependent on public works. However, government spokesmen assure that transparency and technical requirements are necessary guarantees for Costa Rica to maintain its image as a responsible and long-term destination for global capital.
Megaprojects in Costa Rica and Chile and the Green Identity Issue
The suspension also reveals underlying structural issues in Costa Rica’s development model. A country that generates 98% of its electricity from renewable sources must now prove its capacity to conflate environmental stewardship with competitiveness in the face of regional and global scenarios that demand large infrastructure investments. Megaprojects in Costa Rica and Chile crystallize the latent conflicts between environmental leadership, social identity, and the urgency of economic modernization.
Costa Rica’s growth model has historically been anchored in ecotourism and low-impact exports, but the evolving global economy increasingly demands more logistics and digital connectivity. The large public-private projects that include the modernization of airports and clean energy plants are the tools for preventing the country from stagnating. However, environmental groups, as well as legal and bureaucratic mechanisms, have transformed each megaproject into a national controversy on Costa Rican identity, governance, and the boundaries of economic growth.
Chile’s Experience in the South: The Case of HidroAysén
In Chile, the case of HidroAysén is a hydroelectric megaproject of several billion dollars and a generation capacity of more than 2,700 megawatts in the Aysén region in southern Patagonia. The plans for the energy complex on the Baker and Pascua rivers collided with social and environmental rejection, criticism of potential impacts, and a wave of protests. The end came in 2017 with its definitive cancellation, a blow to the then-dominant extractive model in the South American macroregion. The limit of “progress at all costs” was expressed in a conflict of national proportions between economic elites and social sectors allied with environmental groups. The HidroAysén project marked a before and after in the public perception of large projects in Chile, eroding the social license for investments previously considered favorable.
In Chile, the legacy of HidroAysén marked a milestone in the country’s energy transition. The 2020s in Chile are characterized by large solar and wind projects, mainly in the Atacama Desert, which already account for a third of national consumption. In fact, 50% of electricity generation comes from distributed renewable projects, reducing the need for centralized megaprojects. However, experts point out that the approval system in Chile remains complex and cumbersome and that the country continues to experience investor apprehension, as seen in Costa Rica. The country needs large infrastructure to complete its long power lines and the generation of capacity for the future, but some of its initiatives, especially transmission and infrastructure works, suffer from the same bottlenecks.
Suspension of Projects and the Demand for Greater Transparency
Costa Rica and Chile are cases in point for public-private megaprojects that today are testing their political and social sustainability. In both countries, there is now popular demand for greater transparency and environmental guarantees on the one hand and investor demand for regulatory certainty and speed on the other. The tension points to a regional trend in which government officials must convince voters that large-scale projects can bring the promise of betterment without repeating the corruption and ecological damage that have stained the history of Latin America.
Megaprojects in Costa Rica and Chile are also tales of increasingly influential civil society. The role of grassroots organizations, indigenous peoples, and environmental associations has become a cornerstone in the approval or veto of large projects. Their weight will force the region’s leaders to rethink decision-making mechanisms and incorporate greater participation in the definition of the national interest.
Future scenarios and regional implications
Megaprojects in Costa Rica and Chile also affect Latin America beyond their borders. In the 2020s, large investments in the region are exposed to a triple pressure phenomenon that will determine the consolidation or not of a new model of sustainable and stable growth. Megaprojects are caught between demands for more environmental protection, greater citizen oversight, and changes in investment policies. Those who succeed in walking this tightrope will shape the future of the region. The cost of failure, on the other hand, could be severe: flight of capital and investment, social conflict, and loss of competitiveness.
Costa Rica and Chile are two nations with parallel stories, the tension between their traditional green identity and the need to offer good investment conditions in a context of global economic transformation. Their future will condition the shape of investment policy in the 2030s and how Latin America will approach its next wave of industrial, energy, and transportation megaprojects. If successful, the region’s nations will be able to set an example of a new generation of megaprojects to reconcile progress and preservation. The prize will be to redefine the role of Latin America in the global economy. Otherwise, Costa Rica and Chile will be premonitory cases of countries whose paths and development models have been altered by obstacles of their own making.
Conclusion
Megaprojects in Costa Rica and Chile are part of a continental process of search for balance between the preservation of nature and the spirit of progress. Their experience so far shows that the region’s infrastructure future depends on more than engineering and financial resources. Citizen consensus, institutional credibility, and environmental respect will be the parameters for defining whether these billion-dollar bets are a promise of progress or a warning sign.