Colombia and the IDB at a glance

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Colombia work in partnership to increase the country’s competitiveness through investments in infrastructure, initiatives to reduce poverty, and programs to strengthen state governance.

From 2006 to December 2010, the Bank disbursed $4.3 billion in loans to Colombia to support key sectors for development such as infrastructure, modernization and government reforms, education, health, social protection, small and medium-sized enterprises, agriculture , energy, climate change, and environmental protection.

The IDB is supporting social initiatives such as the Families in Action Program, which has increased school enrollment rates and reduced childhood malnutrition, improving the quality of life for children in more than 800,000 families in 640 municipalities in the country. The Bank has also provided financing for the school reform program "Equity in Education in Bogotá” and reproductive health programs for adolescents in Medellín. Other programs supported by the IDB include the “Aguablanca Grocers Network” in Cali and the strengthening of production chains, among others.

The Bank has worked with Colombia to improve public utilities and foster greater growing private sector participation. One company that recently received Bank support was Empresas Públicas de Medellín, which recently inaugurated the Porce III Hydroelectric Plant. This project has been recognized for its engineering achievements in the construction of the dam, the headrace, and the equipment that was used in the plant. During construction, environmental and social safeguard measures were applied according to the highest standards.

The “Integrated Mass Transit System”in Cali, an example of the Bank's support for efficient and sustainable urban transit, is expected to meet 100 percent of the demand for public transportation in that city and improve the quality of life of the low-income population. The Bank has also helped Colombia to provide increased access to clean water and sanitation, which is now accessible to 93 percent of the population.

The Bank is currently supporting projects that utilize technology and innovation to promote social and economic inclusion. From 2010 to the end of January 2011, IDB-financed programs in Colombia totaled $2.4 billion, of which $250 million was used to finance private sector projects.

So far this year, in response to the economic and social emergency, the IDB approved a fast-disbursing financing for $50 million to Colombia to reduce the country’s vulnerability to climate change. This is in addition to a technical cooperation grant for a project to assess the costs of the emergency; the project will be carried out jointly by the Bank and the Economic Commission for Latin America.

During the past 50 years, the IDB has approved more than $14,800 million in loans and technical cooperation grants for Colombia. Since the mid-1990s, the Bank has been Colombia’s main source of multilateral financing, providing support for 20 percent of the development projects carried out in the country.