This makes it possible to monitor the performance of the innovation system and benchmark it against quantitative policy objectives and other countries’ performance. In this area Peru lags well behind OECD countries but also most other Latin American economies. Public resources for scientific and technological development compete with other current or investment expenditures in areas that are often perceived as having higher or more immediate priority, especially in developing countries where the need to alleviate poverty and develop social and economic infrastructure puts strong pressure on the budget. The opportunity costs of public resources devoted to S&T policies and their legitimacy for addressing market and systemic failures must be justified by appropriate accounting of expected economic and social returns and ex post evaluations. The leverage effects of public investment on private investment can provide important signals. This involves the reduction of unwarranted overlaps among implementing agencies in the scope of support programmes to ensure that they concentrate on their core competencies, reduce management and transaction costs, and avoid duplication of programmes of less than critical mass.