How can Colombia become more competitive?

For over 20 years, Colombia has been working on its institutional arrangement in order to improve its competitiveness, implementing reforms to consolidate the National System of Competitiveness, Science, Technology and Innovation. This system has become a solid institutional framework to achieve public-private collaboration needed to develop the National Agenda and also to strengthen the regions.

The National System of Competitiveness (SNC) was established in 2006 in order to coordinate the activities of the national government with the private sector, academia and civil society, on issues related to productivity and economic development in Colombia. Simultaneously, that same year, the Private Competitiveness Council was created as an entity that would become the voice of the private sector within the system. Created by a group of entrepreneurs and universities seeking to promote initiatives and strategies to improve the country's competitiveness, the Council now constitutes the “think tank” of the System and main liaison with the private sector representing long-term views.

At a territorial level, the Regional Commissions for Competitiveness (RCC) were created with the purpose of coordinating and articulating, within each department, the implementation of policies for productive development, competitiveness and productivity.

However, this institutional arrangement proved insufficient to deal effectively with the requirements that the National Agenda of Competitiveness 2010-2014 established. There were a large number of actions -109-, without any prioritization, which made the process of monitoring the advances of the Agenda difficult; actions were too general, and there was no effective governance structure to execute them, impeding the solution of bottlenecks. Additionally, there were a number of actions associated with other policies that had no direct effect on the country's competitiveness.

In order to improve the monitoring and implementation of the National Agenda of Competitiveness, the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, created the Presidential Office for Competitiveness and Innovation, in charge of coordinating the system and the various entities responsible for the National Agenda. To fulfill this role, Mr. Jaime Bueno Miranda was appointed as Presidential Adviser, who with his extensive professional career in consulting, I could incorporate project management and good governance practices from the private sector to the public sector.

1. Implementation of the Project Management Model in the National Agenda for Competitiveness and Innovation

The first improvement introduced to the National System for Competitiveness and Innovation was the construction of a National Agenda for 2014-2019, which was the result of a joint effort of the public and private actors of the system. The agenda is a portfolio of strategic projects that will help the country close the gaps in 11 priority areas: Institutional framework, Regional Development; Science, Technology and Innovation; Agricultural Transformation; Industrial Transformation, Infrastructure, Transport and Logistics; Legality and Corruption; Justice and Rule of Law; Health, Education and Employment, with focus on labor formality; Macroeconomic Stability and Good practices in international trade and antitrust.

To make concrete progress on the Agenda, under a coordinated and results-oriented framework, the Presidential Office implemented a project management methodology, based on the Project Management Institute (PMI). As a result, to date, the Agenda has 33 strategic projects, of which 5 are in process of structuring, 23 in monitoring stage and 6 are concluded. Thus, by applying this methodology, bottlenecks are solved in an agile way, reducing delays in projects that are part of the Agenda.

2. Creation of the National System of Competitiveness, Science, Technology and Innovation

Before the arrival of Mr. Bueno, there were two systems, one for Competitiveness and Innovation and another for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI). The Science and Technology System, was created in 1990 with the aim of creating, maintaining and increasing scientific and technological capacity in Colombia, lead by the Administrative Department of Science, Technology and Innovation –Colciencias. In 2009, the system was strengthened, adding the concept of innovation as a third emphasis seeking to contribute to a national productive model supported in all three STI pillars. However, both systems--the competitiveness and the science, technology and innovation system--worked dis-jointly, impeding coordination between STI and Competitiveness. This implied that their strategies remained independent not only nationally but also regionally.

Given this diagnosis, a second improvement was to establish by law - 1753 2015 - that the two systems would be integrated to consolidate a single System of Competitiveness, Science, Technology and Innovation. Following the legal and political decision, the Presidential Office has been coordinating the integration of the two systems and preparing a decree to regulate this new institutional framework.

3. Strengthening the link of the National Government with the regions

The new law also established that the various departmental committees which promote regional competitiveness agendas, productivity agendas, science, technology and innovation agendas, would join the Regional Commissions for Competitiveness, Science, Technology and Innovation (CR) in each department, with the purpose of articulating their policies and projects. In addition, it stipulated that the Commissions would be the only counterparts for the National Government in these topics.

In order to comply with these requirements, the Presidential Office is leading the project "Construction of an Integrated Agenda for Competitiveness, Science, Technology and Innovation CCIC and the Strengthening of Regional Commissions in each department," which will allow the departments to define and implement strategic projects each one of them need to improve their regional competitiveness, and to leverage instruments from the national level that truly responds to their regional needs.

The World Economic Forum on Latin America is taking place in Medellin, Colombia from 16 to 17 June.

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