Colombia
| OECD Regional Outlook | |
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The OECD Regional Outlook reviews recent trends, policy developments, and prospects across OECD regions, including the underlying causes driving regional inequalities in performance and well-being. The report offers evidence, guidance and policy recommendations on how to improve competitiveness and productivity, promote inclusive growth, accelerate the net-zero transition and raise well-being standards through effective regional development policy and multi-level governance. |
Overview
| Population and territory | 52.156.254 (2023), 1.136.616,142 Km2 |
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| Administrative structure | Unitary country |
| Regional or state-level governments | 32 departments and Bogotá (capital district) |
| Intermediate-level governments | -- |
| Municipal-level governments | 1.121 (1.102 municipalities, 18 non-municipalised areas, 1 island) |
| Share of subnational government in total expenditure/revenues (2021) | 33.2% of total expenditure 42.9% of total revenues [Source: Subnational governments in OECD countries: key data, 2023 edition] |
| Key regional development challenges |
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| Budget allocated to regional development (i.e., amount) and fiscal equalisation mechanisms between jurisdictions (if any) |
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| Major regional policy tools (e.g., funds, plans, policy initiatives, institutional agreements, etc.) |
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| Policy co-ordination tools at national level |
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| Multi-level governance mechanisms between national and subnational levels (e.g., institutional agreements, Committees, etc.) |
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| Policy co-ordination tools at regional level |
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| Future orientations of regional policy |
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Regional inequality trends
Colombia experienced a decline in the Theil index of GDP per capita over 2000-2020. Inequality reached its maximum in 2011.
Source: OECD Regional Database (2022).
In Colombia, the gap between the upper and the lower half of regions in terms of labour productivity decreased between 2005 and 2019. Over this period labour productivity in the upper half of regions grew roughly by 26%, 12 percentage points less than in the lower half of regions. During 2020, the gap continued to narrow. Nevertheless, more years of data are necessary to determine the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on labour productivity gaps in regions.
Note: A region is in the “upper half” if labour productivity was above the country median in the first year with available data and “lower half” if productivity was below the country median. Labour productivity in each group is equal to the sum of Gross Value Added, expressed in USD at constant prices and PPP (base year 2015) within the group, divided by the sum of total employment in regions within the group. Regions are small (TL3) regions, except for Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United States where they are large (TL2) regions due to data availability.
Source: OECD Regional Database (2022).
Recent policy developments
Colombia’s National Development Plan 2022-2026 includes measures and actions aimed to transform and strengthen the technical capacity of subnational governments. In particular, the National government wants to develop a model of differential decentralization that allows the promotion of territorial autonomy. Also, it seeks to advance in a policy to build and improve territorial planning from a new management approach under the following principles: i) protection of water and environmental justice, ii) Human security and social justice, iii) the right to food, iv) productive transformation and climate action, and v) regional convergence
To promote strategic investment projects, the government will aim to align the general budget of the nation, intergovernmental grant system, and the general system of royalties. In this way, the National government will prioritise historically marginalised territories, the municipalities with high levels of informality and of rurality, and allows the full enjoyment of rights of the inhabitants in each of the territories.
In addition to the above, several policies and governance mechanisms have already been implemented in the last two decades to promote and address regional capacities and local development. For instance, the promotion of local and regional association initiatives, policy frameworks to promote national cities development (such as Sistema de Ciudades), the regulation of multipurpose cadastre orientated to promote local development and to endorse economic benefits from land use exploitation.
Colombia's Decentralisation Mission, established in 2021, is working to propose reforms to promote subnational development and reduce regional inequality. The mission's key areas of focus include:
Competencies throughout government levels
Sources and uses of revenues for local development
Institutional architecture and modernization of public administration
Open government and citizen participation
Decentralisation and indigenous territories
Also, since the signing of the peace agreement, Colombia has been implementing rural development policies through the Development Programs with a Territorial Focus (PDET) and advancing towards comprehensive rural reform and the strengthening of agricultural policies (Ley 2183 de 2022).
Finally, Colombia has worked to promote and strengthen digital enablers to improve access, use and appropriation of ICTs in a digitally secure environment. In 2021, Law 2108 was issued, declaring Internet access as an essential public service, and public policies have been formulated to promote Internet access and use in the most remote areas of the country. Later, in 2022, the National Data Infrastructure Plan and its governance model were issued in order to promote the use and exploitation of data; in addition, a new Digital Government Policy was developed, and guidelines were defined to strengthen the governance of digital security, as well as risk management and response to cyber incidents.
For more information: https://www.dnp.gov.co/programas/vivienda-agua-y-desarrollo-urbano/desarrollo-urbano/Paginas/sistema-de-ciudades.aspx↩︎
For more information: https://www.jep.gov.co/Documents/Acuerdo%20Final/Acuerdo%20Final%20Firmado.pdf↩︎
For more information: https://www.leyex.info/documents/leyes/42af2ea68a0ca3fcec69298aa47fc51c.htm↩︎
For more information: https://misiondescentralizacion.dnp.gov.co/Paginas/index.aspx↩︎
For more information: https://pactosterritoriales.dnp.gov.co/Paginas/home.aspx↩︎
Source: https://portalterritorial.dnp.gov.co/AdmInfoTerritorial/MenuInfoTerrEstMDM↩︎
| Territorial definitions |
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The data in this note reflect different sub-national geographic levels in OECD countries. In particular, regions are classified on two territorial levels reflecting the administrative organisation of countries: large regions (TL2) and small regions (TL3). Small regions are classified according to their access to metropolitan areas (Fadic et al. 2019). The typology classifies small (TL3) regions into metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions according to the following criteria:
Disclaimer: https://oecdcode.org/disclaimers/territories.html |