Colombia
Recent trends
Colombia has made efforts to enhance digital access and use for all. Internet users, active mobile broadband and fixed broadband subscriptions increased in the last decade. Colombia rose in the E-Government Development Index from 0.53 in 2008 to 0.69 in 2018, which is above the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) average (0.65) but below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average (0.82). Colombia had lower foreign direct investment (FDI) restrictions than LAC and the OECD in the 2018 OECD FDI Regulatory Restrictiveness Index.
The country is below the LAC average in digital innovation metrics. High-technology exports as a percentage of total manufactured exports rose to 7.3% in 2018 but remain below the LAC (8.6%) and OECD (15.1%) averages. Finally, Colombia has made progress in terms of shaping an inclusive digital society. In particular, the number of students per computer fell from 1.6 in 2015 to 1.1 in 2018, which is in line with the OECD average and below the LAC average.
National strategies and international co-operation for digital transformation
The 2018-22 national development plan (NDP) Pacto por Colombia, Pacto por la Equidad (Pact for Colombia, pact for equity) and the 2018-22 information and communications technology (ICT) plan El Futuro Digital es de Todos (The digital future is for everybody) are the main planning instruments for the development strategy and digital transformation of Colombia. The NDP is divided into structural and regional pacts. A Digital Transformation Pact identifies two main work streams. First, it addresses the issue of digital inclusion, with the aim of increasing access to and use of ICT for all, in line with the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and the empowerment of citizens and households in a digital environment. Second, it addresses issues of transparency and efficiency to promote the development of a digital society and industry 4.0. It aims to promote the digital transformation in three dimensions: public administration, economic sectors and provinces. Through this stream, the government targets 34 high-impact government services to be made available on line.
The ICT plan, Colombia’s national digital strategy (DA), is based on four axes: the ICT environment, digital social inclusion, empowerment of citizens and households in a digital environment, and digital sectoral transformations (OECD, 2019b). In 2019, the government passed a law to modernise the ICT sector by aligning agents’ and authorities’ incentives, updating the sector’s institutional framework with a single regulator and a focus on investments to close the digital divide. It also adopted the National 5G Policy to facilitate adoption nationwide. Other relevant policies include the National Policy for Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence and the National Policy on the Exploitation of Data. Colombia is also developing a national policy on trust and digital security and a national policy to promote innovation in education practices. To respond to the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis on aspects related to telecommunications, the government issued a decree to guarantee the maintenance and operation of telecommunications services. It provides the necessary and exceptional conditions to ensure that users, especially the most vulnerable, will not have services restricted, even if they have difficulties with payment, by extending invoices for 30 days. The decree provides authorisation to prioritise access to the content and apps of health services, emergency care, government, and labour or education information (CAF, 2020).
In terms of international co-operation, Colombia has South-South alliances with more than 90 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the South Pacific. Projects supported by Colombia include online government programmes in the Dominican Republic and Guatemala. The Saber Hacer Colombia initiative, managed by the Presidential Agency for International Cooperation, collects good practices to replicate, including in the digital field, as part of the international co-operation Colombia offers.
The European Union (EU) is Colombia’s largest source of foreign investment, supporting themes ranging from emerging technologies to climate resilience. Colombia recently engaged in co-operation with the EU on innovation, Colombia’s rich cultural assets, and creative industries – the so-called orange (OECD, 2019b), green and circular economies. Colombia also works with the EU in the BELLA (Building the Europe Link with Latin America) project, where the aim is to provide for the long-term interconnectivity needs of European and Latin American research and education networks.
References
CAF (2020), The GovTech Index 2020: Unlocking the Potential of GovTech Ecosystems in Latin America, Spain and Portugal, Development Bank of Latin America, Caracas.
ECLAC (2018), Observatorio Regional de Planificación para el Desarrollo de América Latina y el Caribe (Regional Observatory of Planning for Development of Latin America and the Caribbean), Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago, https://observatorioplanificacion.cepal.org/es.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (2019), EIU Inclusive Internet Index 2019 (database), the Economist Group, London, https://theinclusiveinternet.eiu.com/explore/countries/performance (accessed 11 December 2019).
Global E-waste Statistic Partnership, website, Global E-waste Statistic Partnership, Bonn, https://globalewaste.org/ (accessed 11 December 2019).
ILO (2019), ILO Statistics (database), International Labour Organization, Geneva, www.ilo.org/global/statistics-and-databases/lang--en/index.htm (accessed 11 December 2019).
ITU (2020), World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database 2020 (database), International Telecommunication Union, Geneva, https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/publications/wtid.aspx (accessed 21 August 2020).
Latinobarómetro (2019), Libros de Códigos por País/Año (database), Latinobarómetro, Providencia, www.latinobarometro.org/latCodebooks.jsp (accessed 11 December 2019).
OECD (2020a), OECD.Stat (database), OECD Publishing, Paris, https://stats.oecd.org/ (accessed 11 December 2019).
OECD (2020b), Government at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2020, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/13130fbb-en.
OECD (2020c), Programme for International Student Assessment (database), OECD Publishing, Paris, http://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/2018database/ (accessed 14 February 2020).
OECD (2019a), Measuring the Digital Transformation: A Roadmap for the Future, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264311992-en.
OECD (2019b), OECD Reviews of Digital Transformation: Going Digital in Colombia, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/781185b1-en.
OECD (2019c), Digital Government Review of Panama: Enhancing the Digital Transformation of the Public Sector, OECD Digital Government Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/615a4180-en.
OECD (2019d), Survey of Adult Skills, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/data/.
Open Knowledge Foundation (2019), Global Open Data Index (database), Open Knowledge Foundation, Cambridge, United Kingdom, https://index.okfn.org/dataset/ (accessed 19 April 2020).
PIAAC Expert Group in Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments (2009), “PIAAC Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments: A Conceptual Framework”, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 36, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/220262483674.
UN E-government Knowledgebase (2019), Data Center (database), United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Public Institutions, New York, https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/en-us/Data-Center (accessed 11 December 2019).
UN Statistics Division (2018, 2015), UN Global SDG (database), United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, New York, https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/database/ (accessed 20 May 2020).
UNCTAD (2020), UNCTADSTAT (database), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva, https://unctadstat.unctad.org/EN/ (accessed 11 December 2019).
UNESCO (2019), UNESCO Institute for Statistics (database), UNESCO, Paris, http://data.uis.unesco.org/Index.aspx (accessed 20 May 2020).
World Bank (2020a), DataBank (database), World Bank Group, Washington, DC, https://databank.worldbank.org/home.aspx (accessed 11 December 2019).
World Bank (2020b), TCdata360 (database), World Bank Group, Washington, DC, https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/ (accessed 4 August 2020).
World Economic Forum (2016), “The Global Information Technology Report 2016”, World Economic Forum, Geneva, https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-information-technology-report-2016.
World Wide Web Foundation (2017), OpenData Barometer (database), World Wide Web Foundation, Geneva, https://opendatabarometer.org/ (accessed 19 April 2020).