Good news for Latin America: A new U.N. study projects that the region’s economy will start recovering in the second half this year, and that it will grow by a respectable 3.1 percent next year.

Before getting into whether the forecast released Wednesday by the U.N. Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) is realistic or too optimistic, let’s look at the key points of the report.

According to the study, Latin America’s recovery will follow a grim 2009: the region’s economy will contract by 1.9 percent this year, and unemployment in the region is expected to reach 9 percent by the end of the year, adding an additional 3 million people to the 180 million living below the poverty line.

But, barring surprises, the region’s economy will start picking up in coming months thanks to, among other things, China’s growing purchases of raw materials, a recovery of world commodity prices, a slow but gradual increase in world trade, and signs that the region is beginning to regain access to foreign loans.

Among ECLAC’s projections for specific countries in the region:

• Argentina’s economy will grow by 1.5 percent this year, and by 3 percent next year.

• Brazil’s economy will contract by 0.8 percent this year, and grow by 3.5 percent next year.

• Chile’s economy will shrink by 1 percent this year, and grow by 3.5 percent next year.

• Colombia’s economy will grow by 0.6 percent this year, and 3.5 percent next year.

• Cuba’s economy will grow by 1 percent this year, and 3 percent next year.

• Ecuador’s economy will grow by 1 percent this year, and 2.5 percent next year.

• El Salvador and Guatemala, whose economies will contract by 2 percent and 1 percent respectively this year, will see their economies grow by 2.5 percent each next year.

• Haiti’s economy will grow by 2 percent this year and next year.

• Mexico’s economy will plunge by 7 percent this year, and grow by 2.5 percent next year.

• Panama’s economy will grow by 2.5 percent this year, and a significant 5 percent next year.

• Peru’s economy will grow by 2 percent this year, and 5 percent next year.

• Venezuela’s economy will grow by 0.3 percent this year, and by 3.5 percent next year.

“We believe that we reached the bottom of the crisis in March 2009, ECLAC’s head Alicia Barcena told me in a telephone interview.

“The recovery is likely to be slow, but there are signs that the worst is over.”

Many independent economists agree with the U.N. projections.

Sebastian Briozzo, a senior analyst with the Standard and Poor’s ratings agency, told me that his company’s projections for 2010 are slightly lower, but generally close to ECLAC’s. Standard and Poor’s forecasting growth rates of 2.5 percent for Brazil, 1 percent for Mexico and Argentina, and 4.5 percent for Peru next year.

My opinion: In the post-Lehman Brothers era, we have all learned to take economists’ projections with a grain of salt. As the old joke goes, there are two kinds of economists: those who know that they don’t know, and those who don’t know that they don’t know.

Still, if the consensus forecast of a 3.1 percent economic recovery for the region is right, it should be both celebrated and put in proper context.

It would be a reasonably healthy growth rate, but still far away from the 5 percent growth rates that Latin America needs to absorb the new waves of young people that join its labor markets each year. In addition, it would be far behind the consensus 7 percent growth rate for China and 6.2 percent growth rate for India that most economists project for 2010.

That means Latin America needs to grow faster and — just as importantly — more steadily, as Asian countries have done for the past three decades.

And the key challenge for Latin American countries to do that will not be economic, but political. Judging from the successful experiences of Chile and Brazil, Latin American countries can grow steadily when they create a political consensus within their societies to become more competitive in the global economy.

Countries that follow that path will do great.

Those that continue mired in ideological debates — often stimulated by authoritarian presidents looking for ways to stay in power indefinitely — will lag increasingly behind. And their people will become increasingly poorer.