Three days after the ceremony, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake hit western Colombia and rewrote the agenda entirely. The inheritance came first, though, and it is the reason he is president at all.

The numbers that elected him

The Centro de Paz y Seguridad (Center for Peace and Security) at Universidad Externado counted 40,663 homicides in Colombia between August 2022 and August 2025 — Gustavo Petro’s first three years in office — an annual average of 13,554. Over the equivalent stretch under Iván Duque, the figure was 37,795, averaging 12,598 a year, and under Juan Manuel Santos it was 36,646, averaging 12,215. El Tiempo published the center’s findings in December 2025.

Under Paz Total (Total Peace), the policy that opened simultaneous negotiations with practically every armed and criminal structure in the country, those structures grew. Infobae reported a military intelligence count showing membership rising from 15,120 in December 2022 to 25,278 by July 2025, an increase of 10,158, concentrated in the Nariño Pacific, Catatumbo, Cauca, Bajo Cauca Antioqueño and Arauca — zones, in Infobae’s words, of weak institutional presence. The Fundación Ideas para la Paz (Ideas for Peace Foundation), working from the same count, puts 48 percent of that total under arms and the remaining 52 percent in support networks. By July 2026 the figure had reached 28,802, a 90 percent increase across the Petro years, according to El Colombiano. That is not an interpretation of the policy; it is the count.

The sharpest version of that failure, for a business, is extortion. Ministry of Defense data reviewed by La FM shows 2,914 extortion complaints filed in the first three months of 2026, the highest quarterly figure in 10 years. Gen. William Rincón, director of the National Police, told La FM that more complaints do not automatically mean more crimes, and put the year-over-year increase at 13.1 percent for the same period. La FM identifies merchants, shopkeepers, cattlemen and small business owners as the standing victims of that economy.

A mandate Medellín paid for

De la Espriella won the June 21, 2026, runoff with 12,959,542 votes against 12,708,712 for Iván Cepeda — a margin of 250,830 votes, which El Tiempo put at 0.96 percentage points of all ballots cast, blank and null included, in the Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil (National Civil Registry) preliminary count. MercoPress called it the narrowest margin in a Colombian runoff in 32 years. In the same El Tiempo breakdown, Medellín gave him 819,285 votes against 421,839 for Cepeda — a net margin of about 397,000, larger than the entire national margin, out of a single metropolitan area. Bogotá went the other way, 2,235,514 to 1,933,243. World Population Review puts Bogotá at roughly 7.9 million against 2.5 million for Medellín, so the smaller city delivered the decisive block. Take Medellín out of the arithmetic and Abelardo de la Espriella is not the president of Colombia.

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That is arithmetic, not commentary, and Medellín knows it. The city will expect a return, and an itemized one: the international airport expansion, highway concessions, hard security and continued support for the business climate that made it a destination for nearshoring and technology investment. That is the first political claim on the new government, and it arrives ahead of everything else in the program.

The inauguration was supposed to happen somewhere else. De la Espriella wanted to be sworn in at a military garrison in Popayán, and the Senate approved moving Congress to Cauca for it. Petro killed that on July 24, 2026: “I give no permission to any garrison or military establishment to make itself ready for the swearing-in of any official of the civil power in Colombia,” he said, in a statement carried by El Colombiano that extended to the Army, the Navy and the National Police. La Silla Vacía traced what followed: the House approved the switch to Cali 117 to 7 on July 28, the Senate followed on July 29 by 58 to 30 with 15 abstentions, and de la Espriella’s team cited volcanic activity around Popayán, whose Guillermo León Valencia airport had been shut more than a third of the preceding 20 days. Pacto Histórico (Historic Pact) lost its own blocking motion 114 to 6 and then announced it would not attend the ceremony at all. Per MercoPress, Congress convened at Universidad Santiago de Cali’s arena, Senate President Honorio Henríquez placed the presidential sash on him, and de la Espriella then moved to the Pichincha Battalion, where he spoke to armed forces and police commanders for more than an hour. The same report lists King Felipe VI of Spain among the attendees, along with Javier Milei of Argentina, Daniel Noboa of Ecuador, Santiago Peña of Paraguay and José Raúl Mulino of Panama, with José Antonio Kast of Chile there for bilateral meetings on the sidelines, and records Cepeda ending the day by announcing a shadow cabinet.

Worth noting, because it complicates the symbolism: Cali voted against him, 682,166 to 443,047, and so did Barranquilla, 375,178 to 309,652 — the city he wants recognized as an alternate capital. That designation is not ordinary legislation. Infobae laid out the route: Article 322 of the Constitution makes Bogotá the sole capital and Capital District, so recognizing Barranquilla requires an acto legislativo (constitutional amendment) — eight debates across two rounds, against the four an ordinary law needs. “The forgetting is over, the neglect is over, the centralist abandonment is over,” de la Espriella said in announcing it, per Semana. He has cast it as a break with Rafael Núñez: “A hundred and forty years ago Colombia did not have a president from the Caribbean. The last was President Núñez. But I am not going to make Núñez’s mistake. I am not going to defend the centralism that President Núñez defended. I am going to defend decentralization,” he said, in remarks reported by Infobae. The physical seat is already going up: El Heraldo reported that the Army’s Second Brigade at the Batallón Paraíso will house it, with the Atlántico governor’s office under Eduardo Verano executing the works. El Tiempo counts three regional seats in all: Barranquilla, plus the Centro Cultural de Cali, offered by Mayor Alejandro Eder and plaqued as an alternate presidential seat, and Medellín’s Palacio de la Cultura Rafael Uribe Uribe. In Bogotá itself the presidency moves to the Palacio de San Carlos, which currently houses the Foreign Ministry, while the Casa de Nariño becomes a museum open to the public.

His diagnosis is sound, and the problem is older than any of us: power in Colombia has been concentrated in the capital since independence, and the coast, the Pacific, the plains and the south have paid for it. Whether this becomes an actual redistribution of investment and institutional capacity, or a series of well-photographed ceremonies in cities that did not vote for him, will take a year or more to read.

A mandate without a legislature

The Consejo Nacional Electoral (National Electoral Council) granted legal status to de la Espriella’s Defensores de la Patria (Defenders of the Homeland) on August 3, 2026 — six magistrates in favor, one against and two absent — on the strength of the 12,960,166 votes certified to the ticket in the final scrutiny — 624 more than the preliminary count above — or 49.66 percent, nearly 14 times the 3 percent threshold the law requires, as Infobae reported. He was inaugurated four days later. The party holds no seats in either chamber; Infobae puts its first electoral outing at the regional elections of October 2027, and the next congressional cycle is March 2030.

The Congress he has to work with was elected on March 8, 2026, and seated on July 20, 2026. El País of Cali reported Pacto Histórico rising from the 20 Senate seats it won in 2022 to 25, and Centro Democrático (Democratic Center) from 13 to 17. In the House, La República counted 183 seats, with Pacto Histórico again the largest bloc at 41, Centro Democrático second at 30 and the Partido Liberal (Liberal Party) at 24, one Cundinamarca seat still disputed. The largest single bloc in both chambers belongs to the coalition he just defeated.

That matters more than the usual first-100-days handicapping, because the marquee items all need a legislature. Abolishing the Instituto Nacional Penitenciario y Carcelario (National Penitentiary and Prison Institute), or INPEC, would require statutory change and a redefinition of the state’s role in prison administration. The alternate capital requires a constitutional amendment. So would eliminating the Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (Special Jurisdiction for Peace), or JEP, a tribunal created by constitutional amendment under the 2016 peace accord. What a president can do alone is issue decrees and direct the security forces, and that is what week one consisted of.

The traditional right cannot rescue him, because it is coming apart at exactly the moment he needs it. Centro Democrático’s candidate, Paloma Valencia, won the right-wing inter-party consultation in March 2026 with more than 3 million votes and had been polling near 20 percent going into the May 31, 2026, first round. A Guarumo poll published by El Tiempo had her at 19.9 percent in March 2026, up from 6.9 percent in January. She finished the May 31 first round with 1,639,668 votes, 6.92 percent, behind de la Espriella’s 43.74 percent and Cepeda’s 40.90 percent, per El Espectador’s tally of the Registraduría count — ending roughly where she had started the year. A party founded in 2013 to be the wall against the Colombian left finished third, behind both the man who beat it and the left coalition it exists to stop.

María Fernanda Cabal left the party in January 2026 along with her husband, José Félix Lafaurie, who heads the Federación Colombiana de Ganaderos (Colombian Federation of Cattle Ranchers), telling Infobae that the internal process which selected Valencia over her was irregular. In August 2026, she went further and filed for an escisión (a formal legal split) of the party. “No party can survive when it renounces the ideas that gave it origin,” she wrote, in remarks also carried by Infobae. Valencia, for her part, told a meeting in Antioquia that “we have to understand very clearly what party we are in. This is not a right-wing party.”

Álvaro Uribe’s own legal position complicates the popular version of this story. Judge Sandra Liliana Heredia sentenced him on August 1, 2025, to 12 years of house detention and a fine of $3.444 billion COP for procedural fraud and bribery in a criminal proceeding, the first former Colombian president convicted by the ordinary courts after waiving his congressional privilege in 2020. “The damage was colossal,” she said, as El Espectador reported. The Tribunal Superior de Bogotá (Bogotá Superior Court) acquitted him on October 21, 2025, finding he had committed neither offense. Infobae reported that the court held the interceptions of Uribe’s calls with his attorney Diego Cadena to be illegal and threw them out, and found contradictions and personal motives in the accounts of the former paramilitaries whose testimony carried the case. The Fiscalía General de la Nación (Attorney General’s Office) and the accredited victims filed cassation appeals with the Corte Suprema de Justicia (Supreme Court of Justice) on January 13, 2026, as Infobae reported, and Infobae also reported the court halting the proceeding in February 2026 over a recusal motion against one of its magistrates. Convicted, then un-convicted, with the final word still pending.

Regardless of how that ends, the political cost has landed. Centro Democrático was built around Uribe’s personal ability to anoint a candidate and deliver the votes behind them, and the legal fight, his age and the unpopularity of the Duque administration have drained that ability. The loyalists still worship the man, but his base is aging along with him and that circle is visibly shrinking. Younger conservatives who were not around to admire his successes against the guerrillas went a different direction this cycle, in some respects further right than Uribe and his movement.

“The peace commissioner’s office is finished, because there will be no more false peace processes in my government.” — Abelardo de la Espriella, president of Colombia

The program, and what it will cost

On his first day, de la Espriella signed the decree creating the Bloque de Defensa para la Seguridad Urbana (Urban Security Defense Block), which he had announced on July 5, 2026, while convening the mayors of Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla and Bucaramanga. “To issue effective measures matched to the needs of the worst-affected cities, I am convening the mayors of Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla and Bucaramanga so that, starting from their needs, we can create the largest urban security operation in Colombia,” he said, in remarks reported by El Tiempo. Bogotá Mayor Carlos Galán backed it in the same account: “the country needs to redefine its criminal policy. Far from rewarding criminal gangs, we must punish them. Anyone who commits a violent crime or reoffends in criminal conduct that harms the lives of others belongs in prison, not on the streets.” Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez answered, in a post carried by El Heraldo, “We are ready, President Abelardo de la Espriella… The only ones who should feel afraid are the criminals.” His inauguration address added a tax reform aimed at evasion, elimination of the wealth tax, publication of an official list of narco-terrorist organizations, coca eradication and financial inclusion for informal workers, according to MercoPress.

The centerpiece of the longer program is a set of maximum-security megacárceles (mega-prisons) modeled on the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, built by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. Speaking to Caracol Radio in March 2026, in an interview Infobae wrote up, he described “ten mega-prisons in the middle of nowhere, where not even the signal of the Holy Cross gets in,” to be built with private capital in exchange for concessions of “fifty, seventy, eighty years, whatever it takes,” and confirmed the Bukele model when asked directly. On INPEC he was blunter: “INPEC is a cancer for Colombian justice and for Colombian society. It has to be taken out.” The number is not settled — El Tiempo’s summary of his 10 governing pillars put it at seven. A senior Salvadoran government official said Bukele’s administration is willing to advise Colombia on the build, in an interview with Semana reported by Chicanoticias. Medellín is not waiting: Gutiérrez has announced a high-security facility for more than 1,300 inmates, financed with public and private funds, guarded by its own dedicated force rather than INPEC officers, and expected to open in 2027, according to AFP reporting carried by France 24.

The baseline is genuinely bad. A Contraloría (Comptroller General) review running to 306 findings, reported by El Tiempo, puts overcrowding at 27.1 percent at the close of March 2026, against 19.9 percent in February 2022. Installed capacity rose by 378 beds in four years, from 80,647 to 81,025, while the inmate population grew by 6,246, from 96,703 to 102,949. El Tiempo puts the guard shortfall at up to 12,000, even as the custody corps itself grew from 12,715 to 14,142 officers. The economics are the harder problem. La Nación of Neiva estimates each facility at more than $1 trillion COP and three to four years to build, and cites the Universidad de los Andes security and drugs research center noting that five earlier national planning-council prison-infrastructure plans rarely executed more than 20 percent of their targets, while the combined budget of INPEC and the prison services agency USPEC went from $1.6 trillion COP to more than $4 trillion COP between 2015 and 2025 without improving recidivism.

Colombia does not bring a strong balance sheet to that negotiation. The Finance Ministry’s own investor relations office lists S&P Global Ratings at BB- in foreign currency with a stable outlook as of April 2026, Fitch Ratings at BB stable as of December 2025, and Moody’s Ratings at Baa3 stable as of June 2025 — two of the three agencies below investment grade, with Moody’s alone still holding the sovereign at its lowest investment-grade notch. The April cut was Colombia’s fourth on S&P’s scale since 2020, El Espectador reported, quoting José Ignacio López of the financial research institute ANIF that the country “keeps moving away from investment grade.” A government proposing a mega-prison program on that scale, a national urban security surge and the elimination of the wealth tax, from that starting point, will be judged on sequencing rather than on ambition.

Then the ground moved

At 7:34 a.m. on Monday, August 10, 2026, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia, centered on San José del Palmar in Chocó, a community of 4,800 people about 400 kilometers west of Bogotá. Al Jazeera, reporting with AP and Reuters, sourced the epicenter to the United States Geological Survey and put the toll at 250 dead or more by August 11, with more than 2,700 people reported missing on citizen-run websites and about 1,600 buildings damaged or destroyed. Several upper floors of Cali’s Hospital Universitario del Valle collapsed, including pediatric wards, with roughly 600 patients treated in a street full of rubble; hospital director Irne Torres Castro described the scene to Caracol television. The same report cites the Servicio Geológico Colombiano (Colombian Geological Service) recording 21 aftershocks by late Monday, and quotes Camila Gómez, deputy director of programs for Colombia and Venezuela at the International Rescue Committee, calling it the largest earthquake Colombia has experienced in two decades.

Imágenes desgarradoras del terremoto en Pereira muestra como se les viene encima la casita a esta familia. Pensando más en lo material que en sus vidas, pero nadie sabe cuánto costó conseguirlo. #terremoto #temblor pic.twitter.com/i7gqeZmy5B

— Don Ramon (@RuedaJohnn37191) August 15, 2026

Per that same account, de la Espriella declared a national state of emergency, mobilized what he called “the entire military and police apparatus,” traveled to Quibdó and to Cali, and promised rental subsidies for people whose homes were damaged. Curfews went up in Cali, Armenia and Manizales; hospitals in five cities went to red alert; airports at Pereira, Manizales, Quibdó, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura suspended operations for structural inspection. “Chocó will never again be the land of the forgotten,” he said in Quibdó. MercoPress reported his appointment of geological engineer David Suárez Tamayo to head the Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (National Disaster Risk Management Unit).

That Quibdó sentence is the decentralization argument, delivered under conditions nobody would have chosen. Counting the departments behind the cities named above — Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Risaralda, Quindío and Caldas — the quake hit the exact periphery the alternate-capital project is nominally about, and it hit the department where he had been sworn in three days earlier. It is also the first hard test of a government whose organizing promise is that the state can show up where it never has. On the early evidence, the machinery is being learned in real time. Colombia requested supplies but not foreign rescue personnel, despite offers from at least six countries, issuing a diplomatic note on August 11, 2026, that MercoPress noted does not formally amount to an international appeal. The same report has Bukele making Colombia’s position public before Bogotá did, and quotes international relations scholar Sandra Borda saying “the government is learning on the go how the mechanism works,” and that cities cannot channel aid directly. The posture shifted within days. By August 15, in the same El Tiempo report that carried his call with Trump, the Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (National Disaster Risk Management Unit), or UNGRD, had begun formalizing requests for specialized teams from the United States, El Salvador, Ecuador and Israel, and de la Espriella had thanked Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone for the Israeli search-and-rescue crews.

🔴Se conocen impactantes imágenes del momento exacto en el que colapsó una edificación en la entrada del Centro del Comercio, en la ciudad de Pereira, durante el terremoto de 7,4 que se registró en Colombia el pasado 10 de agosto.

Las grabaciones muestran la caída de fragmentos… pic.twitter.com/oNZGvdbCJC

— EL TIEMPO (@ELTIEMPO) August 14, 2026

For the fiscal picture above, the quake is not a footnote. Reconstruction across those five departments now competes directly with prison concessions and an urban security surge for the same constrained peso. That belongs in any risk model built on the strength of the new security program.

Washington promises a billion dollars, and raises the tariff

The external position moved faster than anything domestic. On inauguration day, the US State Department released a statement titled “A New Era in US-Colombia Relations”, announcing that Washington, in coordination with Congress, intends to provide $1 billion USD as part of a security package supporting the new administration. El Tiempo noted the money is not approved: the statement says only that Washington will work with Congress to assemble it. The reversal it implies is still steep. US assistance to Colombia, which once ran at about $400 million USD a year, fell to roughly $187 million USD during the first year of Trump’s second term, according to a report to the US Congress cited by Infobae — a cut made in Washington, not in Bogotá, during a period of open dispute over drug policy. In 2025, the United States declined to certify Colombia’s counternarcotics performance for the first time since 1997, with a national-interest waiver that withheld the harshest consequences.

MercoPress reported that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche led the US delegation to the inauguration, with Office of National Drug Control Policy director Sara Carter and the vice president’s national security adviser, Cliff Sims; Donald Trump, JD Vance and Marco Rubio did not travel. The same State Department statement folded Colombia into Escudo de las Américas (Shield of the Americas), a regional security initiative backed by the Trump administration. De la Espriella had already placed its Colombian seat in Medellín, announcing on July 22, 2026, that the headquarters would go there “because this is where the head of the serpent of drug trafficking and organized crime is,” in remarks reported by Portafolio — a strategic choice, and also a second payment on the electoral debt described earlier.

Five days after the inauguration that relationship acquired a considerably harder edge. At an Escudo de las Américas meeting in Panama on August 12, 2026, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the new Colombian government had asked Washington to join its fight against narcoterrorism, “authorizing joint military operations to destroy the terrorists and the terror networks,” and named Colombia the 19th member of the Coalition Against the Cartels of the Americas. El Universal of Cartagena reported the announcement, and Vanguardia and El Tiempo both described what was authorized as joint military operations inside Colombia. That is a different proposition from an assistance package. Aid is a budget line Washington can adjust; foreign forces operating alongside Colombian ones inside Colombia is a sovereignty question, and it was settled in the first week of a presidency that commands no bloc in Congress. Whether that arrangement stays executive or ends up before the legislature is among the most consequential open questions he leaves himself.

The billion-dollar headline needs one piece of context that did not make the statement. CBS News reported that at the end of July 2026, roughly a week before the “new era” release, the United States raised its general tariff on Colombian imports from 10 percent to 12.5 percent, with exceptions including coffee and oil. After the earthquake, de la Espriella’s first substantive ask of Trump was to undo it. He told El Tiempo that the 10-minute call was “very friendly and cordial,” that he had asked Trump to consider a temporary suspension “to relieve our businesspeople, who are facing very difficult times because of the effects of the earthquake,” and that he had described the task ahead as rebuilding Colombia “in the middle of the economic situation — so difficult, so apocalyptic — that I inherited.” CBS News put the accompanying US assistance at $26.5 million USD, up from the $15.5 million USD announced on the day of the quake.

In his victory speech in Barranquilla, covered at the time by Finance Colombia, he framed the shift as Colombia returning to its place among the free nations, as a serious partner and a loyal ally rather than a dependent one. A relationship in which the ally sets your tariff rate and you ask for relief by telephone is a workable relationship. Whether it stays reciprocal, or curdles into dependency on whichever administration holds the White House, is a fair question over four years, and it is worth asking no matter who is in Washington.

Troublesome tendencies in Abelardo’s background

Between 2008 and 2019, de la Espriella filed 109 criminal complaints for defamation and slander against journalists, reporters and other citizens, according to Fiscalía figures provided to the Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (Foundation for Press Freedom), or FLIP. Most were archived, withdrawn or went nowhere, which is precisely FLIP’s point about them: the organization argues that the effect of repeated recourse to lawsuits, injunctions, rectification demands and platform complaints is measured not in convictions but in legal costs, attrition and self-censorship.

Ahead of the runoff, FLIP and the International Federation for Human Rights issued a joint statement describing a pattern of attacks against the press, and FLIP’s own June 18, 2026, statement characterized it as “public disparagement, accusations of alleged political agendas, judicial harassment of journalists, baseless challenges to editorial independence, and actions aimed at undermining journalism on matters of public interest related to his candidacy.” The same LatAm Journalism Review summary records de la Espriella’s answer, that it is necessary to “set limits on journalists who believe they are untouchable.” He now says that with the machinery of the state behind him rather than a private lawyer’s caseload. Whether he has matured on this point, or simply acquired better tools, is one of the first real tests of the term.

In July 2026, he announced the closure of the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace along with the presidential offices for National Reconciliation and for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, folding their functions into the Interior, Foreign Affairs and Defense ministries on the argument that those competencies already sit there and the offices duplicate them. “The peace commissioner’s office is finished, because there will be no more false peace processes in my government,” he said, as El Tiempo reported. The Unit for Implementation of the Final Agreement goes with them, its responsibilities passing to a new National Security Commissioner — the postconflict brief absorbed into a security structure. Infobae put the scope at 229 positions cut from the Presidency as of August 7, 2026, for a projected annual saving of $10 billion COP. Winding down a negotiating strategy that failed on the numbers above is a defensible decision. El Tiempo’s reading of the rest is the part worth sitting with: the move dismantles the two offices that tracked state human rights policy and compliance with Colombia’s international commitments, and leaves those subjects with no unit reporting directly to the president.

The prison model carries the same risk in another form. The attraction of Bukele’s system, in de la Espriella’s own telling, is the collapse in gang violence that followed it. What it also produced is documented: Amnesty International found that four years into El Salvador’s state of emergency more than 90,000 people had been detained and at least 470 had died in state custody, in a report titled «Seguridad» sin derechos (“Security” Without Rights) built on six documentation visits between May 2022 and January 2025, 109 interviews and direct examination of more than 80 individual cases. The organization argues the pattern could amount to crimes against humanity. Whether Colombia’s version imports the first result without the second is unknown, because the program does not exist yet. It belongs near the top of the watch list for the coming year, and not only on financial grounds.

What to watch

In the Barranquilla victory speech quoted earlier, de la Espriella struck a different note than his record suggests: no victors and no vanquished, no retaliation, no persecution, rights respected even for those who did not vote for him. With a margin under 1 percentage point, a party four days old at inauguration and no bloc in Congress, that posture is arithmetic before it is generosity. It is also the only version of this presidency with a chance of surviving past a single term.

The collapse documented here fell hardest on low-income Colombians in the cities and the countryside — the people without private security, who cannot simply avoid a dangerous neighborhood. If the crackdown that began under the urban security decree goes after the armed structures themselves rather than the poorest people living next to them, the homicide and extortion trends can reverse. If it does not, the country trades one set of victims for another and buys a human rights problem on top of a security problem.

Five markers will tell the story faster than any speech. Whether quarterly extortion and homicide figures move, and in which municipalities. Whether financing for the prison program appears as an actual budget line rather than a concession announcement, now that reconstruction has a prior claim on it. Whether the Corte Suprema rules on Uribe, and what that does to what is left of Centro Democrático. Whether the alternate-capital amendment survives even the first of its eight debates. And whether any rating agency moves an outlook on the strength of the new fiscal posture, or against it on the cost of the quake.

The armed groups tested every recent transition in Colombia early, and there is no reason to expect this one to be different. The FARC dissident structures and the National Liberation Army, or ELN, will test the response, and the way this administration answers that first test — in Cauca, in Catatumbo, in the Bajo Cauca — will tell you more about the next four years than the first 100 days of decrees.

Ecopetrol closed its purchase of Enerfín Colombia — the Statkraft renewables subsidiary that owns Portón del Sol — along with six other special-purpose solar entities totaling roughly 0.6 gigawatts, on November 13, 2025, for $157.5 million USD, part of a broader deal that also includes wind assets still pending closing. Announcing the sale in May 2025, Statkraft’s Executive Vice President for Europe, Barbara Flesche, said: “The deal confirms that Enerfín has built a skilled team and an attractive portfolio in Colombia. We are looking forward to watching the business grow under new ownership.” Ecopetrol and Portón del Sol signed a merger commitment on March 5, 2026, and Ecopetrol’s shareholders approved the absorption at the General Shareholders’ Meeting on March 27, 2026. The plant, located in La Dorada, in the department of Caldas, was Colombia’s first utility-scale solar plant and would fold entirely into Ecopetrol, which has said the move is meant to simplify management of its renewable-generation assets and capture tax and administrative efficiencies. Because Ecopetrol is the surviving entity, Article 6.4.1.1.42 of Decree 2555 of 2010 requires it to bring the transaction before a General Bondholders’ Meeting for each outstanding local issuance before it can close.

Alianza Valores Fiduciaria S.A. and Itaú Fiduciaria Colombia S.A., the legal representatives of Ecopetrol’s local bondholders, issued the meeting notices at Ecopetrol’s request under Article 6.4.1.1.18 of Decree 2555 of 2010, publishing them in the newspaper La República.

Holders of the 2010 issuance, Series A (COC04CBVP023) — Colombian peso bonds indexed to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), placed December 1, 2010, maturing December 1, 2040, paying CPI plus 4.90%, with $284,300 million COP outstanding — meet at 2 p.m. Bogotá time. Attendance is in person at Carrera 37 No. 24-24, Centro de Innovación Bogotá, or virtually via Ecopetrol’s 2010 bondholder platform, hosted on the electronic system of Deceval S.A. (Depósito Centralizado de Valores de Colombia), Colombia’s central securities depository. Besides voting on the merger itself, that meeting will hear Alianza Fiduciaria’s opinion on the transaction and a reading of the opinion issued by Fitch Ratings Colombia S.A.S., and will delegate the appointment of a chairperson and secretary to the Bondholders’ Representatives under Legal Circular 006 of 2025 from the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia (Financial Superintendency of Colombia).

Holders of the 2013 issuance (COC04CBVP007) — also CPI-linked pesos, placed August 27, 2013, split into a 15-year tranche maturing 2028 at CPI plus 4.90% ($347,500 million COP outstanding) and a 30-year tranche maturing 2043 at CPI plus 5.15% ($262,950 million COP outstanding) — meet at the same venue at 3:30 p.m., or virtually via Ecopetrol’s 2013 bondholder platform. That meeting follows a similar agenda, with two differences: bondholders appoint their own chairperson and secretary directly rather than delegating the task, and the opinion on the merger comes from Itaú Fiduciaria Colombia S.A. (formerly Helm Fiduciaria S.A.) rather than Alianza.

Both meetings are convened under Article 19 of Law 222 of 1995 and Decree 398 of 2020, Colombia’s rules governing virtual corporate meetings. Requirements for participating are posted on Ecopetrol’s investor relations site.

The bondholder votes follow other recent debt moves at Ecopetrol, which in April 2026 refinanced $1.25 billion USD in external debt and closed a separate state subsidy settlement. Ecopetrol employs more than 19,000 people and, besides oil and gas production and refining, holds a 51.4% stake in Interconexión Eléctrica S.A. (ISA) (BVC: ISA), giving it interests in regional power transmission, the Barranquilla-Cartagena highway concession, and, through XM, administration of Colombia’s wholesale electricity market.

Above image: Gas well Orca Norte -1. Photo: Ecopetrol

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia at 7:34 a.m. local time on Monday, August 10, 2026, killing at least 111 people and injuring 87 others, according to figures confirmed by President Abelardo de la Espriella and reported by Noticias Caracol. Twenty-nine of the deaths occurred in capital cities. The figures are expected to rise as search-and-rescue teams continue working through collapsed buildings in Cali, Chocó, and the Coffee Axis region.

“The same seismic systems and plate tectonics powering today’s earthquake are also behind recent volcanic activity at Volcán Puracé, but it would be a mistake without more evidence to infer any causality between the phenomena.” — Isabella Casasbuenas, mining engineer, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

The US Geological Survey (USGS) located the epicenter 5 kilometers south of San José del Palmar, a small municipality in the department of Chocó, at a depth of approximately 110 kilometers. The Servicio Geológico Colombiano (SGC, Colombian Geological Survey) described it as the strongest earthquake to hit Colombia in a decade. It was felt as far away as Bogotá, Medellín, and neighboring Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama.

The national government declared a “situación de desastre nacional” (national disaster situation), and President de la Espriella, who was inaugurated just three days earlier, canceled his Monday agenda to lead the response personally. “He asumido directamente el liderazgo de la atención por la emergencia en San José del Palmar” (“I have taken direct leadership of the emergency response in San José del Palmar”), the president wrote, announcing a Puesto de Mando Unificado (Unified Command Post) at the Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (UNGRD, National Unit for Disaster Risk Management). He later said he would travel to Bogotá to run the response from the UNGRD’s crisis room, with the vice president and cabinet ministers dispatched to Chocó, the Eje Cafetero (Coffee Axis), and other affected zones. “Lo primero es el rescate de las personas que están bajo los escombros, esa es la prioridad” (“The first priority is rescuing people under the rubble”), he said, according to Noticias Caracol.

The most dramatic footage I’ve ever seen of an earthquake as it was occurring … 🙏🏼🙁 pic.twitter.com/yg1BWUnhFc

— John (@market_sleuth) August 10, 2026

According to the president’s office, the earthquake damaged 1,575 homes and destroyed 37 others, collapsed 61 buildings, and damaged 18 health centers, 52 schools, 17 community centers, and 18 roads. Six airports, including those serving Pereira, Manizales, Quibdó, Armenia, Cartago, and Buenaventura, lost commercial operations, and a seventh sustained runway damage. In Cali, the mayor’s office reported more than 20 collapsed structures with people trapped inside; in Manizales, a tower of the city’s cathedral was damaged. The UNGRD said four urban search-and-rescue teams, from Bogotá, Envigado, Yopal, and Medellín, were deployed, with Bogotá and Antioquia contributing heavy equipment and aircraft. The agency also confirmed there is no tsunami threat to Colombia’s Pacific coast, and the SGC recorded two aftershocks, of magnitude 2.8 and 4.8, near the Chocó municipality of Nóvita.

Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM, Medellín’s public utility, which operates several of the country’s hydroelectric dams) said in a statement that its infrastructure was undamaged and no injuries were reported at its facilities. “Producto de nuestras operaciones no se han presentado personas o estructuras afectadas,” the utility said, adding that it continues operating normally while monitoring the situation. Read the full statement at epm.com.co.

The One Foundation is mobilizing to support the response in the hardest hit areas. Click or scan the QR code.

How to help

Readers looking to support relief efforts can donate through the UNGRD‘s official channels , the One Foundation (One Inversión Social), or the Cruz Roja Colombiana (Colombian Red Cross), which coordinates emergency response nationally; its website was intermittently unreachable Monday amid the surge in traffic following the earthquake. In Medellín, the Fundación Banco Arquidiocesano de Alimentos de Medellín (Carrera 52 No. 30A-97) and Fundación Saciar (Carrera 50 No. 25-261) are collecting non-perishable food, water, rice, cooking oil, pasta, lentils, beans, canned goods, cornmeal, wheat flour, panela, powdered and UHT milk, hygiene products, diapers, and bedding for affected families. Noticias Caracol has additional donation points as they are confirmed.

Understanding the science: why a deep quake shook such a wide area

For readers unfamiliar with seismology, a few basics help explain why an earthquake this size caused damage across several cities at once, rather than concentrated destruction near a single epicenter.

Estimated shaking intensity for the August 10, 2026, earthquake near San José del Palmar, Chocó. Image: US Geological Survey (USGS)

Earthquake magnitude measures the total energy released at the source; USGS calculated this event at 7.4 on the moment magnitude scale, the modern standard that replaced the older Richter scale for large earthquakes. Depth matters just as much as magnitude in determining what people on the surface actually feel. Most damaging earthquakes, like Ecuador’s 2016 Muisne quake or Haiti’s 2010 disaster, originate less than 20 kilometers below the surface, concentrating destructive shaking in a relatively small area near the epicenter. Monday’s earthquake originated roughly 110 kilometers down, a category seismologists call an “intermediate-depth” earthquake (any quake between 70 and 300 kilometers deep). Energy traveling that far to the surface loses some of its punch directly overhead, but it spreads shaking, typically more moderate but still potentially damaging, across a much broader region. That is why residents felt Monday’s earthquake as far as Bogotá and across three neighboring countries, even though the shaking was most intense closer to the Chocó-Valle del Cauca border.

The quake’s mechanism was primarily strike-slip faulting, meaning the two sides of the fault slid horizontally past each other, rather than one block thrusting up over the other, as happens in the shallow “megathrust” earthquakes more familiar along Chile’s or Japan’s coastlines. USGS’s analysis of the seismic waves (a “focal mechanism”) could not distinguish between two possible fault orientations, a steeply dipping fault with a mix of reverse and left-lateral motion, or a moderately dipping fault with largely right-lateral motion, but both are consistent with deformation occurring inside the Nazca plate itself as it descends beneath the South America plate along Colombia’s Pacific margin. Given the depth, USGS said the rupture likely occurred within the subducting plate rather than at the shallower boundary between the two plates.

Intermediate-depth earthquakes like this one are common along the length of the South America subduction zone and are generally attributed to bending stresses within the descending plate, distinct from the shallower interface earthquakes that produce tsunamis. Monday’s event occurred near the northernmost point where this type of intermediate-depth seismicity has historically been observed in Colombia. USGS noted that only two earthquakes of magnitude 7 or larger have occurred within 250 kilometers of Monday’s epicenter since 1950, and both were located near the coast; the region has more typically produced earthquakes below magnitude 7. USGS’s automated PAGER impact system, which generates preliminary loss estimates within hours of an earthquake to guide humanitarian response, issued an “orange” alert, its second-highest level, indicating significant casualties and widespread damage were likely; the system’s early statistical model, not a confirmed count, pointed toward hundreds of fatalities and roughly $649 million USD in economic losses, broadly in line with the toll now being confirmed on the ground.

Estimated population exposed to each level of shaking intensity. Image: US Geological Survey (USGS)

A volcano already on alert nearby

The earthquake struck as Colombian authorities were already managing a separate, unrelated emergency: an orange alert at Volcán Puracé (Puracé Volcano) in the department of Cauca, roughly 150 kilometers south of Monday’s epicenter. The SGC has kept the Coconucos volcanic chain, which includes Puracé, Piocollo, and Curiquinga, under its second-highest alert level since a sharp rise in seismicity and gas emissions began around July 20, with instrumental readings in early August reaching the highest levels recorded since continuous monitoring began in 1993.

The volcano has produced six ash emissions since the afternoon of Friday, August 7, including two significant plumes, documented by residents and the SGC’s monitoring cameras, on Friday at 5:57 p.m. and Saturday at 9:12 a.m. Sulfur dioxide flux from the crater has measured around 2,100 tons per day, well above the volcano’s historical average, while ground-based carbon dioxide readings have also climbed. Natalia Contreras, the SGC official who oversees geohazard information, said the seismic activity driving the alert is dominated by fluid movement in shallow volcanic conduits, tremor and long-period earthquakes located less than a kilometer beneath the crater, rather than by rock-fracturing earthquakes, which have stayed comparatively rare and weak. It is the second time in less than eight months that Puracé has reached orange alert. The UNGRD has begun trucking water to roughly 3,000 residents in nearby communities after ash and acidic gases affected local water sources and pasture, and has prepared, but not activated, evacuation routes for the area.

Finance Colombia asked Isabella Casasbuenas, a mining engineer from Colombia’s Universidad Nacional (National University), whether Monday’s earthquake and Puracé’s unrest are connected. She explained that the same regional seismic systems and plate tectonics, ultimately driven by the Nazca plate’s subduction beneath South America, underlie both phenomena, but cautioned against inferring any direct causal link between the two without further evidence. Seismologists broadly share that caution: Monday’s rupture occurred roughly 110 kilometers underground, within the subducting Nazca plate, while the seismicity driving Puracé’s alert is occurring less than 2 kilometers beneath the volcano’s crater, in the shallow magmatic and hydrothermal system that feeds it. The two processes sit within the same broad tectonic framework but are not, on current evidence, mechanically linked events.

This is a developing story. Casualty and damage figures are preliminary and likely to change as search-and-rescue operations continue.

USGS’s ShakeMap system, which models expected shaking intensity using the Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale, estimated that roughly 1.6 million people experienced “very strong” shaking (MMI VII), nearly 8.9 million experienced “strong” shaking (MMI VI), and another 17 million experienced “moderate” shaking (MMI V) across Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama.

According to the embassy’s July 28 notice, service will run at Centro Colombo Americano in Bogotá and Centro Colombo Americano in Medellín on a walk-in basis. No appointment is required, but access to a representative is limited to a controlled number of tickets handed out daily at the entrance on a first-come, first-served basis.

Locations and hours

In Medellín, the unit will be at Centro Colombo Americano, Carrera 45 No. 53-24, Monday through Friday, August 10-14, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with Friday hours ending at 2:00 p.m.

In Bogotá, service will be at Centro Colombo Americano, Calle 98 No. 17-32, Monday through Thursday, August 10-13, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The embassy’s notice does not list Bogotá hours for Friday, August 14.

“Access to a representative is limited to a controlled number of tickets handed out daily at the entrance on a first-come, first-served basis.” — US Embassy Bogotá

Proof of life forms can be dropped off without waiting

Beneficiaries whose Social Security number ends in 50 through 99 may drop off a completed and signed Foreign Enforcement Questionnaire, form SSA-7162 or SSA-7161, at either location during service hours without waiting for a representative.

What to bring

The embassy is asking anyone seeking pension benefits, a Social Security number, or a bank account change to come prepared with both the original and a copy of all required documents, plus the applicable form.

For a direct deposit change, bring form SSA-1199-OP69 and a valid photo ID. For a new application for Social Security benefits, each applicant needs an original and a copy of their birth certificate and US passport; those applying for auxiliary or survivor’s benefits as the spouse of a deceased beneficiary also need the original and a copy of the marriage and death certificates. For a Social Security number card application, each applicant needs an original and a copy of their birth certificate and US passport, along with a completed form SS-5FS.

The embassy directs anyone with questions about the full range of Regional Federal Benefits Unit services to its service page, or to reach the embassy through its consular contact form or by phone at +57-1-275-2000. US citizens in Barranquilla can also reach the US Consular Agency there at conagencybarranquilla@state.gov.

The embassy is also encouraging US citizens in Colombia to follow the U.S. Citizen Alerts – Colombia channel on WhatsApp for future security and services updates.

Photo of Miami’s unforgettable Jimbo Luznar (RIP) by Loren Moss

The specialized exhibition showcases leading national and international brands in the dental industry, offering visitors the opportunity to discover the latest innovations in dental equipment, instruments, materials, digital dentistry, imaging technology, and clinical solutions.

Designed for dentists, orthodontists, oral health specialists, dental technicians, students, and healthcare professionals, OdontoTech provides a platform for business networking, professional development, and product demonstrations while highlighting advances that are shaping the future of oral healthcare.

Dates: July 28–31, 2026
Venue: Corferias, Bogotá, Colombia

For more information and to pre-register, visit www.feriaodontotech.com.

Held at a time when Colombia’s agricultural exports continue to reach record levels, the exhibition will provide a platform for business development, investment, innovation, and knowledge exchange across the region’s agri-food ecosystem.

The event is expected to welcome more than 350 exhibiting companies and approximately 14,000 specialized visitors, alongside international buyers and representatives from the financial, technology, and agribusiness sectors. Dedicated business platforms such as AgroMatch and AgStar will facilitate commercial partnerships, investment opportunities, and networking throughout the exhibition.

One of the main additions to this year’s edition is the transformation of FIXA into a comprehensive Knowledge Ecosystem, featuring six specialized areas focused on topics including agricultural technology, livestock, agribusiness, finance, productivity, and innovation. The programme will include conferences, TED-style presentations, startup pitches, advisory sessions, case studies, and networking activities.

Discussions throughout the event will cover key issues shaping the future of agriculture, including artificial intelligence, precision farming, biotechnology, regenerative agriculture, food security, rural finance, export markets, and AgrifoodTech innovation.

Dates: October 21–23, 2026
Venue: Corferias, Bogotá, Colombia

For more information, visit https://expoagrofuturo.com.

The five-day exhibition is expected to welcome more than 500 exhibitors and approximately 50,000 professional visitors, providing a platform for companies to showcase technologies, strengthen commercial relationships, and explore opportunities across Colombia and Latin America’s industrial sectors.

The event will feature solutions and innovations spanning areas such as industrial machinery, automation, advanced manufacturing, robotics, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, tools, equipment, raw materials, and specialized industrial services.

Beyond the exhibition floor, FIB 2026 will include a specialized academic programme and innovation-focused spaces such as the Innovation Laboratory, 3D Tech Zone, Industry Talks, networking areas, coworking spaces, and a business matchmaking forum, creating opportunities for knowledge exchange and strategic partnerships.

Designed for decision-makers including executives, engineers, production managers, maintenance professionals, and procurement specialists, the Feria Internacional Industrial de Bogotá serves as a meeting point for companies looking to discover new technologies and solutions shaping the future of industry.

Dates: September 28–October 2, 2026
Venue: Corferias, Bogotá, Colombia

For more information, visit https://www.feriainternacional.com.

Visitors will be able to explore exhibits from more than 130 leading brands, test new products, receive expert advice, attend live demonstrations, and discover exclusive product launches. The exhibition will showcase innovations ranging from running shoes and performance technology to sports nutrition and fitness accessories.

Dates: July 23–25, 2026
Venue: Corferias, Bogotá, Colombia

For more information, visit www.mediamaratonbogota.com/expomedia.

Image: A fitness gymnasium in Medellín, Colombia (photo: Loren Moss)

Several Ferrari customers in Colombia are seeking answers after paying advance deposits for vehicles that they say have not been delivered, following the end of the relationship between Ferrari and its former Colombian representative, Autos Italianos de Colombia S.A.

The dispute emerged in July 2026 after customers reported uncertainty over vehicle orders and advance payments made through the Bogotá dealership. Ferrari North America confirmed that Autos Italianos de Colombia was no longer part of its authorized distributor network as of June 4, 2026, and said it was working to identify a new representative for Colombia.

At the center of the controversy are buyers who say they transferred significant sums of money for Ferrari vehicles but have not received their cars or refunds. One customer, businessman Antonio Mendivil, said he paid a $30,000 USD deposit toward a vehicle order and was later informed that Ferrari had not received the funds.

“We made the $30,000 USD advance, and we were left with the fact that my $30,000 USD never reached Ferrari; it stayed in Colombia, in this company called Autos Italianos.” – Antonio Mendivil, Ferrari customer

According to reports from Colombian media, several customers had placed orders through the Ferrari showroom previously operated by Autos Italianos de Colombia in northern Bogotá. Buyers said they expected the dealership to manage the ordering process, international production timeline and eventual delivery of their vehicles.

The Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio (SIC), Colombia’s consumer protection authority, began reviewing the situation after receiving complaints from customers. On July 22, 2026, the agency requested information from Autos Italianos de Colombia regarding sales conditions, delivery commitments and its commercial relationship with Ferrari.

The SIC’s action is a preliminary consumer protection review and does not represent a final finding of wrongdoing. The authority is seeking documentation to determine whether consumer regulations were followed in the sale of the vehicles.

Ferrari North America has distanced itself from the dispute involving the former distributor and stated that matters related to customer claims against Autos Italianos de Colombia should be addressed directly with that company. The company also confirmed that it is searching for a new official distributor in Colombia.

On July 31, 2026, Autos Italianos de Colombia responded to the dispute by announcing that it had initiated legal proceedings against Ferrari North America. The former distributor requested evidence-gathering measures before civil courts in Bogotá to examine the circumstances surrounding the termination of its representation agreement, including Ferrari’s decision-making process, vehicle allocations, customer orders and advance payments. The company’s legal action represents a separate dispute from the consumer complaints filed by Ferrari buyers and does not constitute a finding that either party acted improperly.

The case has also drawn attention from the Fiscalía General de la Nación after complaints from buyers regarding possible irregularities. Allegations reported by customers and media remain under investigation and have not resulted in a confirmed judicial finding against the individuals or companies involved.

For luxury vehicle buyers, the dispute shows the importance of understanding payment structures, contractual responsibilities and the role of authorized distributors in high-value international purchases.

Ferrari vehicles often involve long production timelines, customized specifications and substantial advance payments. The resolution of the Colombia dispute will depend on whether authorities and the parties involved can clarify the status of customer funds, pending orders and contractual obligations.

Headline photo : Ferrari showroom in Bogota (Photo shared by EEIM via Wikimedia Commons)

Colombia recorded more than 24 million non-resident visitors during the current presidential term and generated close to $34.43 billion USD in foreign exchange from travel through December 2025, figures released by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism (Ministerio de Comercio, Industria y Turismo, or MinCIT) show. The ministry says tourism has become one of the country’s largest sources of foreign exchange, surpassing traditional export sectors such as coal and coffee.

“Today, Colombia demonstrates that it can also generate wealth from its biodiversity, its cultural heritage, the quality of its services and the talent of its people.” -Diana Marcela Morales, Former Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism

The figures were presented during the Foro Internacional de Turismo: Colombia, un destino por explorar (International Tourism Forum: Colombia, a Destination to Explore), held in Bogotá on July 15. The event brought together tourism associations, business leaders, academics and government officials to discuss the sector’s performance and future, including regenerative tourism, artificial intelligence, smart mobility and innovation in visitor experiences.

Promoted under the campaign Descubre la Diversidad de Colombia, El País de la Belleza (Discover the Diversity of Colombia, the Country of Beauty), the ministry reported that more than 24 million non-resident visitors arrived during the administration of President Gustavo Petro, representing a 109% increase compared with the previous equivalent period. Of those arrivals, 14.8 million were foreign visitors.

According to the Banco de la República, Colombia’s central bank, tourism generated approximately $34.43 billion USD in foreign exchange through December 2025, exceeding revenue from coal and coffee exports. Tourism has also become the country’s largest services export, with 57% of services export earnings coming from the sector.

“For decades, much of the country’s capacity to generate foreign exchange was tied to the export of raw materials,” Former Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism Diana Marcela Morales said. “Today, Colombia demonstrates that it can also generate wealth from its biodiversity, its cultural heritage, the quality of its services, the talent of its people and the confidence that millions of people place in choosing the country as a destination. Tourism expresses, perhaps like few other sectors, that transition toward a more diversified economy with greater added value.”

Employment has also expanded alongside visitor growth. Figures from DANE (Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística, Colombia’s National Administrative Department of Statistics) show that accommodation and food service activities supported approximately 1.8 million jobs in February 2026, a 15% increase compared with the same period in 2019. During 2025, the sector accounted for 4.4% of Colombia’s national value added.

International demand has continued to grow during 2026. In the first quarter, more than 368,000 international airline tickets were sold with Colombia as the destination, representing a 16.7% increase over the previous year. The largest source markets were the United States, Brazil and Mexico.

During the first two months of 2026, approximately 10 million passengers traveled through Colombia’s airports, an 8% increase across domestic and international traffic. Between January and March, the country received 1.58 million non-resident visitors.

The government has also expanded tourism investment beyond major destinations. MinCIT reported that infrastructure projects—including trails, docks, boardwalks and gastronomic plazas—have reached 699 municipalities, representing 63% of Colombia’s territory. According to the ministry, 207 municipalities received tourism investment for the first time.

The ministry also said tourism initiatives now cover all 140 municipalities included in Colombia’s Programas de Desarrollo con Enfoque Territorial (Development Programs with a Territorial Focus, or PDET), a post-conflict development framework for areas historically affected by armed conflict. Through its Turismo para una Cultura de Paz (Tourism for a Culture of Peace) strategy, more than 999 businesses have joined the Colombia Destinos de Paz (Colombia Peace Destinations) certification.

“Unlike other economic activities, whose benefits tend to concentrate in specific production centers, tourism generates value precisely where a country’s natural, cultural and historical heritage is located,” Morales said. “It is a bridge that connects different cultures and brings opportunities to intermediate municipalities, strengthens rural economies, energizes small businesses and creates incentives to conserve what makes each territory unique.”

Headline Photo: Beachside in Barú, Colombia (photo by Loren Moss)