Colombia Government News: Equity for Women, Immigration Policy, Culture, Economic & Safe Reactivation, and International Relations.

The Colombian Embassy in Kenya presents a summary of the most important news in our country. For this mission, delivering this information to our main allies is a clear example of the political, social, and economic ties between Colombia and East Africa.

If you wish to have more details about the information sent, the doors of our embassy are open to discuss and broaden the topics of interest.

Mónica de Greiff

Ambassador of Colombia in Kenya

 

MARCH 24 - 2022

 

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN COLOMBIA?

 

EQUITY FOR WOMEN

• The Vice President and Chancellor, Marta Lucía Ramírez, met on March 17 with the directors and coordinators of the United Nations system agencies in Colombia.

• The purpose of the meeting was to establish a space for ‘constructive dialogue’ that would allow the generation of synergies between the different United Nations agencies and to strengthen actions that have a positive effect on the mission and objectives, including empowerment and gender equity.

• During the meeting, the senior official recognized the work and leadership that the directors and representatives of the UN have had in the country which demonstrated their commitment to advance towards Colombia's sustainable development priorities, including gender equality support in the response to COVID-19, climatic emergencies and mixed flows from Venezuela.

• The Vice President and Chancellor, Marta Lucía Ramírez, presented a ‘balance of the policy with a women's seal’ led by the Government of Colombia, on March 15 at the UN headquarters in New York, which had axes as a policy tax to generate more quality employment for women, and the promotion of entrepreneurship as a strategy to generate more economic income.

 

CULTURE

• The Government of Colombia (Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism (CIT) and FONTUR), announced the launch of the 'Ruta de la Cumbia y las Músicas del Caribe', a cultural tourism project that invites travel of more than 1,300 kilometers of the Colombian Caribbean, to the rhythm of its musical genres and its cultural heritage.

• “We created this route to boost the artistic and cultural activity of the Caribbean, contributing to the economic and employment reactivation and the scheduled increase in the flow of visitors through tourism. In addition, projects such as the 'Ruta de la Cumbia' are an opportunity to specialize the offer and promote other destinations in the country”, assured the Ministry of Culture and the CIT Ministry.

 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

• With the purpose of coordinating actions that are consistent with the priorities of the Government, the Vice President and Chancellor, Marta Lucía Ramírez, in the company of senior government officials, held a dialogue on March 18 with the Secretary-General of the International Italo-Latin American Organization (IILA), Antonella Cavallari.

• During the meeting, the Vice President and Chancellor highlighted the excellent results of the cooperation projects developed in recent years by the IILA in Colombia, especially that of the NGO Perigeo, focused on promoting ‘antipersonnel mine risk education initiatives, and that they develop with SENA (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje-a Colombian agency that offers young people free training programs in the levels of professional technicians and technologists) to mainly focus on agriculture and sustainable tourism.

• The International Italo-Latin American Organization explores alliances with new actors, which allow the execution of actions and the generation of synergies that provide sustainability to its projects in Colombia. The IILA's initiatives are characterized by their components of sustainability, innovation, and technology transfer for production, transformation, and the supply of services.

• The governments of Colombia and Ireland launched a ‘Business Network’ in Bogotá on March 17, in which more than 20 companies from both countries will participate, hence contributing to the growth and expansion of both markets.

• The act was led by the Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marta Lucía Ramírez; and the Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland who is also Minister for Business, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar, who met at the Palacio de San Carlos to explore the possibilities of strengthening areas such as investment, trade, tourism, education, entrepreneurship, cooperation, and political dialogue.

• The Irish Deputy Prime Minister said that “we had the opportunity to launch a network uniting Irish companies that are doing business here in Colombia. This includes companies that are excellent in different industries such as financial services, fintech, agrotech, aviation, construction, engineering, education, life sciences, among others.”

• “With the allocation of the highest budget of the decade for Colombia, by the Government of President Joe Biden, the excellent cooperative relations between our countries are ratified and it is confirmed that we are the most important ally of the United States in the hemisphere,” said President Iván Duque on his official Twitter account on March 15.

• “For this year, the allocated budget amounts to USD 471.3 million, which is USD 10 million more than the 2021 budget; an important contribution that we appreciate,” said the Colombian President, and that will be reflected in investments to strengthen the fight against drug trafficking and care for the most vulnerable.

 

ECONOMIC REACTIVATION

• In April 2022, the ‘Solidarity Income’ will celebrate 2 years reaching the most vulnerable families in Colombia, hence consolidating itself as one of the flagship social programs of the National Government, delivering monetary aid to households in conditions of poverty and extreme poverty affected by the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• This was stated by the leadership of the National Planning Department (DNP), an agency of the Government of Colombia, which also stated that, in order to counteract the effects of inflation, this month the number of benefited households was increased from 3 to 4 million and increased by 18%,the value of the subsidy delivered to these families will continue until next December.

• In February 2022, the program had already reached 3.08 million households with monetary transfers that exceeded 11.5 billion pesos, but it was necessary to overcome the inflationary effects that had been impacting prices since the second half of 2021, the DNP noted. Consequently, President Iván Duque increased the number of beneficiary households and the value of the subsidy, seeking to mitigate the pressures on the cost of living with greater purchasing power.

• Solidarity Income was initially designed to operate for three months. Thanks to the Social Investment Law approved by Congress, and sanctioned by President Iván Duque, the program can be executed until 2022.

• A report presented by the rating firm Standard & Poor's (S&P), highlighted the progress that Ecopetrol has made in the last four years in environmental, social, and corporate governance issues. Ecopetrol mitigates social risks with its strong commitment to educating local communities in Colombia, with efforts to raise the social standards of its suppliers, and with a strong focus on operational safety.

• “Colombia's growth in January this year was 7% and will have similar behavior in February and March when the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) will certify these figures that demonstrate the good progress of the national economy,” said President Iván Duque during the Assembly of Affiliates of ProAntioquia on March 17.

 

 

 

IMMIGRATION POLICY

 

• On March 14, President Iván Duque thanked the Secretary-General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, for the conversation held in which the Government of Colombia reiterated its rejection of the unjustified Russian aggression against Ukraine, as well as Colombia's willingness to provide humanitarian support and share experiences in the matter of migratory attention.

• It is worth remembering that, on March 10 from the White House, during the meeting he held with the President of the United States, Joe Biden, accompanied by the government delegations of the two countries; The Colombian president pointed out that "we have spoken with the Secretary of NATO and I have been talking with leaders in Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and other European countries, in order to offer them advice from Colombia for the management of migration under these circumstances”.

• More than 760,000 Venezuelan migrants already have in their possession their Temporary Protection Permit (PPT), issued in development of the Temporary Protection Statute for Venezuelan Migrants (ETPMV- Estatuto de Protección Temporal para Migrantes Venezolanos - ETPV), Migración Colombia reported on March 17. The Temporary Protection Statute for Venezuelan Migrants issued by decree in the year 2021, to regularize 1,800,000 Venezuelan citizens, has had a positive balance.

• Migración Colombia has indicated that more than 1,550,000 Venezuelans have reserved an agenda for biometric registration, 1,400,000 have already attended the appointment and completed the procedure, 760 already have their permit granted –of which 711,000 are already printed– and more than 570,000 permits have already been delivered.

 

 

OUTSTANDING ECONOMIC NEWS

• According to figures from DANE as of January, the overall rate of participation of young people in the labor market was 53.3%. The employment rate for the total number of young people between 15 and 28 years of age was 43.1%, a figure that represents a reduction of 1.2% if it is compared with the same moving quarter of the previous year in which the employment rate was of 44.3%.

• The DANE revealed that 93.4% of the employed population is affiliated with social security, during the same moving quarter of last year, the affiliation to the health system was confirmed by 91.5% of the employed.

 

• The DANE revealed that the GDP of Bogotá during 2021 had a rebound of 10.3% during 2021 driven by trade and manufacturing. This rise was mainly explained by trade, which had a growth of 20.8% and contributed 4.5% to the figure.

• The Colombian Chamber of Oil, Gas, and Energy (Campetrol) projected a 53% increase in oil development wells drilled by 2022. Despite the fact that in 2021 the number of development wells drilled improved by 61% compared to the first-year of the pandemic, this activity has not yet returned to pre-crisis levels.

For further information, please contact César Castro:

cesar.castro@cancilleria.gov.co