On Tuesday, President Petro alleged via the social media platform X that Peru had illegally claimed land belonging to Colombia. “Again, the government of Peru has taken over territory that belongs to Colombia and has violated the Rio de Janeiro Protocol,” Petro stated. “Islands have appeared that are north of the current deepest line, and the Government of Peru has just appropriated them by law and placed the capital of a municipality on land that, by the treaty, should belong to Colombia.”

Petro’s comments refer to the Peruvian Congress’s recent creation of the Santa Rosa de Loreto district, establishing its capital on Isla Santa Rosa. The Colombian president affirmed that his government “will use, first of all, diplomatic steps to defend national sovereignty.” He also announced the relocation of Colombia’s Battle of Boyacá commemoration to Leticia, the capital of its Amazonas department, as a direct response to the dispute.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro (left) has expressed an ideological affinity for disgraced Peruvian President Pedro Castillo (right).

The Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs swiftly responded, expressing “its most firm and energetic protest” and rejecting Colombia’s claims. In a formal statement, the ministry asserted that the new district’s territory “is under the sovereignty and jurisdiction of our country, by the international political limits established” in the 1922 Boundary and Fluvial Navigation Treaty between Peru and Colombia and the subsequent work of the Joint Boundary Demarcation Commission.

Peruvian Congressman Alejandro Muñante of the Renovación Popular party suggested Petro’s motives were political. He urged his country’s foreign minister to “cut off any hidden intention of Mr. Petro to want to divert the focus of attention from the many problems his country has towards a conflict that he has invented.” Muñante added, “Mr. Petro has a not-so-peaceful background; he was a former guerrilla, he still considers himself a communist militant, so we are not talking about a person who is objective.”

In Colombia, opposition Senator and presidential pre-candidate Maria Fernanda Cabal criticized the Petro administration’s handling of the issue. “Don’t be irresponsible! You are mediocre people who understand nothing of what is happening in the country,” she posted on X. “They attack Peru, but allow the genocidal Maduro regime to take over Catatumbo. This is not resolved with threats.”

As both nations trade official communiqués and public statements, the call from academic experts to reactivate the binational border commission remains the most cited path toward a de-escalation of the conflict.

A History of Strained Relations Between Petro & Boluarte

This territorial flare-up is the latest in a series of diplomatic clashes between the governments of Gustavo Petro and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte. Relations soured significantly after the December 7, 2022, impeachment and arrest of former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo following his attempted “self-coup.”

President Petro, an ally of Castillo, has repeatedly defended the ousted leader and questioned the legitimacy of Boluarte’s succession. The diplomatic fallout led to the mutual withdrawal of ambassadors. On February 18, 2023, the Peruvian Congress declared President Petro persona non grata with a vote of 72 in favor, 29 against, and 7 abstentions. The motion expressed rejection of Petro’s “offensive” statements against Peru’s National Police (PNP) regarding their response to social mobilizations that supported the ousted Castillo.

A nearly identical dispute over Isla Santa Rosa arose in July 2024. At the time, a Colombian foreign ministry official stated the island “would not belong to Peru and would be irregularly occupied.” Peru issued a formal protest, and the incident was considered closed after Colombia offered a satisfactory response. The current escalation indicates the underlying issue was never resolved.

Dueling Interpretations of Treaties and Geography

The border between Colombia and Peru was largely defined by the Salomón-Lozano Treaty of March 24, 1922. “The river’s course was divided between the two States not by the middle, but by the best navigable channel, the deepest one,” explains Walter Arévalo, a professor of International Law at the Universidad del Rosario in Colombia. This principle is known as the thalweg.

According to historian Felipe Arias Escobar of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, the treaty was initially met with opposition in both nations, leading to the Colombia-Peru War of 1932. The conflict concluded with the signing of the Rio de Janeiro Protocol in 1934, which ratified the 1922 treaty. “It is a conflict in the service of nationalism that at the time served to strengthen national identity,” Arias Escobar notes.

The core of the conflict lies in differing interpretations of historical agreements and the dynamic geography of the Amazon River.

Colombia’s Position

The Colombian Foreign Ministry presented a more nuanced position than President Petro’s direct accusation of illegal occupation. The ministry stated that Isla Santa Rosa is a formation that emerged in the Amazon River after the only official allocation of islands between the two countries in 1929.

Rafael Orozco, Director of the Americas for the Colombian Foreign Ministry, clarified the stance: “For the island ‘Santa Rosa’ and others that have arisen after 1929, an allocation process must be carried out by common agreement between the Foreign Ministries.”

The Colombian government announced it has presented formal protest notes to Peru, requesting the reactivation of the Permanent Joint Commission for the Inspection of the Colombo-Peruvian Border (COMPERIF) “so that, based on an allocation methodology, a decision can be made on the sovereignty of the islands that have emerged in the course of the Amazon River after 1929.” The ministry’s statement emphasized, “For years, Colombia has maintained the need for binational work to be carried out for the allocation of islands and has reiterated the position that the ‘Isla de Santa Rosa’ has not been assigned to Peru.”

Castillo’s failed self-coup led to Dina Boluarte being recognized as Peru’s 1st female vice-president.

Peru’s Position

Peru counters that the island is not a new formation requiring allocation. Peruvian Foreign Minister Elmer Schialer stated that any claim of a border dispute is “a completely mistaken position from a legal, geographical, technical, and historical point of view.”

Schialer argues that Isla Santa Rosa was originally part of Isla Chinería, which was assigned to Peru in the 1929 demarcation. “One of the islands assigned to Peru was Chinería, and, around the 1950s, the river split off a part that was later called Santa Rosa Island. It was not born nor did it emerge, but was part of Chinería,” Schialer explained. He added that the channel that separated it later dried up, reintegrating it with the larger island. “Not only was Santa Rosa Peruvian, but it continues to be Peruvian.”

The Peruvian Foreign Ministry’s communiqué echoed this, stating, “The town of Santa Rosa is an integral part of the Peruvian island of Chinería, assigned to Peru in 1929.” Schialer stressed that Peru has developed infrastructure on the island since the 1970s, including a school and government offices, “without the Colombians ever saying anything.” He concluded, “Santa Rosa is Peruvian, just as Leticia is Colombian… We should not ask a friendly nation what we can or cannot do in our territory.”

View the disputed area on Google Maps.

Explore the region in Google Earth.

The Shifting River and the Fate of Leticia

Compounding the sovereignty dispute is a pressing environmental issue threatening Colombia’s primary Amazon port. Sedimentation, deforestation, and climate change are causing the main channel of the Amazon River to shift away from Leticia and towards Peruvian territory.

A study by the Faculty of Mines at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia warned that Colombia is at risk of losing its most significant fluvial connection. “A model developed by the National Navy anticipated several years ago that, by 2030, the Amazon River could cease to pass in front of Leticia for most of the year… Today, the model is a reality,” the study concluded. Professor Lilian Posada García, involved in the research, warned, “If immediate action is not taken, Leticia will cease to be a riverside city. The implications go beyond the symbolic; they are cultural, economic, and territorial.”

President Petro directly linked this environmental threat to the current dispute, expressing fear that Peru’s actions could “make Leticia disappear as an Amazonian port, taking away its commercial life.”

Experts like Santiago Duque, a limnology professor at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, emphasize the river’s dynamic nature. “When the treaty was signed, opposite Leticia, there were only two islands… a border between Colombia and Peru is a living, changing border, which both countries must review from time to time.” He added, “It is time for the countries to sit down to review the new geographical situation and make decisions. There are more than seven new islands, including Santa Rosa.”

Headline image: Aerial view of Leticia, Colombia, Tabatinga, Brazil, and Santa Rosa Peru, on the Amazon River. Satellite image by Google Earth.

Let them eat eggs

According to Colombia’s public functionary registry, Carrasquillo earns a compensation package of just over $5,000 USD, or roughly 20x the Colombian minimum wage. While the salary is not exorbitant, Carrasquilla doomed himself—and perhaps his tax reform package when he went onto Colombian media to defend the proposal. Colombian journalist Vicky Dávila challenged Carrasquilla about the cost of living faced by Colombians, and the effects of the tax increases, including eggs, which would be taxed under the fiscal reform package—while sugary soft drinks would remain exempt. Carrasquilla’s answer to the cost Colombian consumers pay for a dozen eggs:

“On the issue of eggs, it depends on its quality. Let’s say $1,800 COP (48 cents, US) a dozen or something like that.”

A dozen eggs in Colombia costs an average of approximately $8,000 COP ($2.20 USD), though that price may fluctuate widely based on grade, packaging and purchase channel.

Juan Pablo Zárate, the technical deputy minister of finance, also submitted his resignation yesterday. Like Carrasquilla, Zarate also held finance ministry positions in both the administrations of Alvaro Uribe and Ivan Duque.

“My continuity in the government would make it difficult to quickly and efficiently build the necessary consensus, — Álberto Carrasquilla in his renunciation.

A familiar face takes over

President Duque immediately named current Minister of Commerce, Industry & Trade (MinCIT), José Manuel Restrepo as the new head of Colombia’s finance ministry, MinHacienda. Restrepo has been a longtime fixture of the Duque administration, working on trade deals, exports, and tourism promotion, though he is a well-credentialed economist. Restrepo in the past was a teacher in the faculties of Economics, Jurisprudence, Business Administration and in the postgraduate course in Finance at Colombia’s Universidad del Rosario and has authored a significant number of dissertations and academic articles.

Restrepo holds an undergraduate degree in economics from the same university and holds a master’s degree in Economics from the London School of Economics, Senior Management from INALDE Business School and a PhD in Management of Institutions of Higher Education from the University of Bath.

Despite the strong academic credentials, Restrepo faces a gargantuan task. As the new finance minister late into the term of an unpopular president, he now must figure out how to design a tax reform that can actually shore up Colombia’s fiscal deficits and manage the company’s debt while gaining approval from large swaths of the populace that are prone to oppose anything the Duque administration puts forward. Colombia’s debt rating is in peril, and the administration has little to no remaining political capital to spend on grand initiatives.

Restrepo speaks

José Manuel Restrepo, Colombia’s Minister of Commerce, Industry & Tourism

José Manuel Restrepo immediately took to the airwaves to outline what he hopes to accomplish. In an interview with the Caracol broadcasting network in Colombia, Restrepo said that any fiscal reform package he presents would stand upon three pillars:

1. To benefit Colombians suffering from the Pandemic: “That we are absolutely aware of so many people who were affected as a result of the impact of a pandemic…young people who do not have the possibility of an employment relationship, all those vulnerable people who need that basic emergency income, the micro and small entrepreneurs who need a break and tax relief and payroll subsidies for an additional time, women over 40 who lost their jobs.”
2. Send a message to the international markets that Colombia will guarantee stability in its public finances and fiscal responsibilities: Colombia is rapidly losing investor confidence and is in danger of losing its investment grade debt rating. Should that happen, the country’s government and public would face dire monetary and fiscal consequences.
3. Restart the economy to begin to undo the damage caused by COVID-19 health measures and pandemic lockdowns, the contraction in national GDP, and dearth in tax revenues and mineral royalties. In his previous role, Restrepo oversaw Colombia’s foreign investment promotion efforts and tourism initiatives.

“I have appointed the prestigious economist Arturo José Galindo as co-director of the Banco de la República. Galindo has more than 25 years of experience in the design and implementation of economic policies and was an advisor to the Government of Colombia and Senior Economist of the @BancoRepublica,” Duque wrote in his account.

The president explained that the new co-director “holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In the @el_BID (Interamerican Development Bank) he held the positions of Chief Economist for the Andean Region and Head of the Strategic Planning and Development Effectiveness divisions. ”

The new co-director has extensive experience in economic policy with a particular focus on macroeconomic issues, economics of the financial system and capital markets, and economic development.

In the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Galindo also served as manager in charge of the Department of Strategic Planning and Development Effectiveness and economist in the Department of Economic Research. During his time at this institution, he contributed to the development of policies, strategies, corporate processes and projects aimed at strengthening the work of the IDB in its support for the development of Latin America and the Caribbean.

In addition, he has been a professor at the universities of the Andes and Rosario, and has published several articles on macroeconomic and financial issues, in prestigious international academic journals.

This standing represents a bit of a drop off for the Bogotá research university that is often called Uniandes. In 2017, Times Higher Education placed Los Andes fifth in all of Latin America.

Photo: The Edifício Mario Laserna at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. (Credit: Leandro Neumann Ciuffo / Universidad de los Andes)

Despite the slight fall, Universidad de los Andes, which has 16,664 students, according to the organization’s data, was easily the top performer in the country and scores favorably against its peers across Latin America when it comes to research and citations.

“It is an innovation- and research-led university with 163 laboratories, and admission is competitive,” wrote Times Higher Education in its summary of the school. “Its students tend to have a strong academic background before applying. The university aims to produce ‘highly skilled’ and ‘well-rounded’ graduates. Many stay on to pursue further studies.”

But after Uniandes, the nation’s institutions continue to lag behind many of their regional peers in the rankings.

The massive population of Brazil, in addition to its cultural heritage, is a key factor for its dominance of the list. Overall, the country of 200 million citizens occupies 24 of the top 50 spots for Latin American universities, including first and second place (State University of Campinas and the University of São Paulo).

But Colombian schools also significantly underperform compared to Chilean institutions, despite the Andean country having nearly three times the population.

Only three other Colombian schools — Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín (20th), Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá (29th), and Universidad Nacional de Colombia (31st) — even placed in the top 50 for the region.

Chile, by comparison, has nine in the top 50, led by Pontificia Universidad Católica (3rd) and Universidad del Chile (6th).

Argentina also beats Colombia with five in the top 50, although it has no institutions on par with Universidad de los Andes. Its highest-ranking universities this year are Universidad Nacional de San Martín (19th) and Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (22nd).

Colombia did perform well compared to Mexico, however, despite it having a population of around 120 million versus less than 50 million for Colombia. Each placed four institutions in the top 50, although Mexico as expected does better in terms of volume with 16 in the top 100 compared to just nine for Colombia.

The five other Colombian schools ranked in the top 100 of Latin America are: Universidad Industrial de Santander in Bucaramanga, Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Universidad Antonio Nariño in Bogotá, and Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín.

Published annually by the Madrid-based research organization Merco, the 2018 edition published today ranks Grupo Nutresa as the top Colombian company when it comes to attracting talent. The Medellín food processing firm — best known for consumer brands including Cafe Sello Rojo, Jet, Crem Helado, Saltín Noel, Tosh, and Zenú — operates two dozen plants in Colombia and has a presence in the United States, Mexico, Chile, and several other Latin American nations.

Merco, which has been publishing corporate-reputation-focused reports since 2000, downgraded Colombia’s biggest bank, Bancolombia, one spot to second place. It topped the rankings in 2017.

State-controlled oil company Ecopetrol, milk producer Alpina, and top domestic airline Avianca round out the top five.

The full top 100 list can be viewed on the company’s website, with the top 25 listed below including Colombian insurance giant Sura and bank Davivienda.

1. Grupo Nutresa
2. Bancolombia
3. Ecopetrol
4. Alpina
5. Avianca
6. Grupo EPM
7. Sura
8. Bavaria
9. Cementos Argos
10. Nestlé
11. Universidad Nacional de Colombia
12. Johnson and Johnson
13. Coca-Cola Femsa
14. Organización Corona
15. Universidad de los Andes
16. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
17. Bayer
18. Davivienda
19. Colombina
20. Compensar
21. Universidad de la Sabana
22. Celsia
23. Cemex
24. Universidad del Rosario
25. Pepsico

(Photo credit: amtec.us.com)

Drug trafficking has long embedded itself in Colombia’s civil conflict, hiding among, and subverting, the warring factions. Now as the civil conflict draws down, with just the ELN still in the field, drug trafficking is mutating once again. This time Colombia’s drug lords realize that their best protection is not a private army, but anonymity. That is why we are calling the fourth generation of drug traffickers in Colombia “The Invisibles.”

Photo: Colombian law enforcement burn a coca laboratory in the Colombian department of Nariño. (Credit: Policía Nacional de Colombia / AP, William Fernando Martinez)

In 2013 many heralded a turning point in the war on drugs in Colombia as plummeting cocaine production was coupled with dismantling of the great drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). The United States and Colombia celebrated the success of “Plan Colombia.” The accepted wisdom was that the Mexicans now ran the shrinking wholesale cocaine trade and that their day was coming.

This “success” was a mirage. Today the cocaine trade in Colombia is more buoyant than ever before, with production at record levels and new international markets being exploited. Colombian drug traffickers have learned that violence is bad for business. The new generation of traffickers have learned that anonymity is the ultimate protection, that “plata” (“silver”) is infinitely more effective than “plomo” (“lead,” as in bullets). The Colombians have ceded the world’s biggest market, the United States, to the Mexicans. This is not a sign of weakness but rather a savvy business move.

This article is part of an investigation carried out for the Colombian Observatory of Organized Crime, which is coordinated by the InSight Crime Foundation and Universidad del Rosario’s Faculty of Political Science, Government and International Relations (FCPGRI). The information was collected by a multidisciplinary team of 12 researchers in visits to more than 146 municipalities.

Drug trafficking to the US market is not good business. The risks of interdiction, extradition and seizure of assets are high, while wholesale prices are between $20,000 and $25,000 a kilogram. The Colombians prefer to look to Europe where a kilogram of cocaine is worth over $35,000, or China ($50,000) or Australia ($100,000). The risks are lower and the profits higher. It is simply good business.

Today’s Colombian drug trafficker is more likely to be clad in Arturo Calle than Armani, wear classic European shoes rather than alligator boots, drive a Toyota rather than a Ferrari, live in an upper middle class apartment rather than a mansion with gold taps. He will have the face of a respectable businessman. Forty years after Pablo Escobar industrialized the drug trade, we now see a new generation of traffickers who learned from their fathers and even grandfathers.

They are plying their multimillion-dollar business off the radar, without attracting any attention. Nowadays it is almost impossible to separate the dirty money from the clean after 50 years of increasingly sophisticated money laundering with investment in every facet of Colombia’s economy. Today’s drug lord will never touch a kilogram of cocaine, much less wield a gold-plated 9 mm pistol. His weapon is an encrypted cellphone, a diverse portfolio of legally established businesses, an intimate knowledge of world finance. He is an Invisible and he forms the heart of the fourth generation of drug trafficking in Colombia.

What has prompted the latest evolution of Colombia’s drug trade?

1. Departure of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) from the criminal stage.
2. Weakening of the last nationwide criminal network of the Urabeños (also known as the Clan del Golfo or the Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia).
3. The battering of the visible structure of the Oficina de Envigado.
4. The Pax Mafiosa in Colombia ensuring that violence falls even as cocaine production, and other illegal economies, strengthen.
5. Weak implementation of the peace agreement, driving FARC rebels back into the illegal economies and undermining the peace process with the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN).
6. Record levels of cocaine production.
7. The emergence of a new criminal network, the ex-FARC mafia, made up of dissidents, FARCRIM and the “hidden FARC.”
8. The increased efficiency of Colombian intelligence and their ability to effectively target identified drug traffickers.
9. A division between the pure blood (“pura sangre”) narcos and the military apparatus of drug trafficking.

The drug trade is the most agile business on the planet. Managing billions of dollars and able to defy national and international law enforcement, it adapts to changing conditions far more quickly than governments and security forces. It learns from its mistakes in what is the world’s most unforgiving and brutal markets. And the conditions today and until 2019 are in their favor thanks to a variety of national and international factors:

1. The election year in Colombia. No serious policy or strategic decisions are going to made now until the new president has made himself at home in the Casa de Nariño in early 2019.
2. The collapse of Venezuela and the criminalization of the Chavista regime under President Nicolás Maduro, which has huge implications for criminal dynamics in Colombia.
3. Neighbors, Panama, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru have all been hit by high level corruption charges undermining legitimacy of government and distracting governments from the fight against transnational organized crime (TOC).
4. A lack of direction from Washington, combined with friction sown by President Trump with key anti-narcotics allies like Mexico and Colombia (the public threat of decertification).
5. Total lack of unity among Latin nations on how to tackle the cocaine trade.
6. The spreading of the cancer of corruption across Latin America and the Caribbean, creating yet more opportunities for TOC and the cocaine trade.

What does the future of the cocaine trade in Colombia look like?

1. The development of a new criminal network made up of former members of the FARC, which may come to dominate the production of cocaine in Colombia.
2. The increasing infiltration of drug trafficking into the ELN, further weakening command and control, discipline and ideology. This threatens the prospects for peace.
3. Top drug traffickers becoming more and more clandestine.
4. An increasing sophistication of Colombian TOC, learning the lessons of 40 years evading national and international law enforcement.

This article, written by Jeremey McDermott, was originally published by Insight Crime, a Medellín-based foundation dedicated to the investigation and analysis of crime and security in Colombia and Latin America.

Photo: Luis Fernando Castro, the outgoing head of Bancóldex, spoke recently in Bogotá about the development bank’s new green bond initiative. (Credit: Jared Wade)

The switch, which will formally take place on September 4, marks the first leadership change for the Bancóldex in nearly four years. The Bogotá-based bank, in a statement, said that Suárez Melo will look to build on the progress made with Castro at the helm, particularly in regards to the specialty instruments that Bancóldex has begun to introduce in recent years.

This month, for example, the organization introduced a series of “green” bonds that will help fund sustainable development in the country. The initiative was launched with support of the Bolsa de Valores de Colombia (the national stock exchange), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) of Switzerland.

Suárez Melo, a lawyer by trade, has previously served in the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce and as the Colombian ambassador to Venezuela. He also was the head of Del Rosario University in the Colombian capital.

The career diplomat and former foreign minister who has headed the Colombo-American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) since 2010 will replace Juan Carlos Pinzón, who resigned from his post last week just one day after Santos met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington.

Photo: Camilo Reyes, the former foreign minister of Colombia and outgoing head of the Colombo American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), speaks at an event in Bogotá. (Credit: Jared Wade)

Pinzon, a centrist politician and former defense minister who “is not disqualifying” a presidential run in 2018, according to local newspaper El Tiempo, served as ambassador in the Colombian embassy in the U.S. capital for just under two years. ”I firmly believe that the nation needs to build consensus to achieve the best destiny of our beloved Colombia,” wrote Pinzon in a resignation later.

In the letter, the outgoing ambassador also outlined what he views as the key achievements in bilateral relations during his time in the post, including the increase in U.S. aid for “Plan Colombia” this year to $450 million USD, the creation of the United States-Colombia Business Council in March, and the upcoming visit to Colombia by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence scheduled for August.

Camilo Reyes, as he assumes the role of ambassador, will bring 35 years of experience as a diplomat and “continue our strategic alliance with the United States,” said Santos on Twitter.

In addition to his time as minister of foreign affairs, Reyes has served as deputy minister of foreign affairs, ambassador to the United Nations, and ambassador to Prague. In 2001 at the United Nations in Geneva, Reyes chaired the UN Conference on Illicit Trafficking in Small Arms and Light Weapons as well as the Conference for Development.

As the head of AmCham for the past seven years, he has worked closely with U.S. companies, business leaders, and public officials while seeking to promote greater trade and economic activity between Colombia and the United States. Following the passage of the U.S./Colombian free trade agreement in 2012, bilateral trade reached a record high.

In addition to serving as a professor at the Rosario University and Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, Camilo Reyes has also earned degrees in international relations-related disciplines from Jorge Tadeo Lozano and University of the Andes in the Colombian capital.

Steven Joyce, New Zealand’s Minister of Education, Training, and Employment, with Colombia’s Vice Minister of Education Ntalia Ariza

New Zealand recently concluded a mission to Colombia led by the Minister of Education, Training and Employment, Steven Joyce, along with representatives of New Zealand’s Agency for International Education (ENZ) with the purpose of strengthening bilateral ties and to formalize cooperation agreements in education between the two countries.

Minister Joyce met with Vice Minister of Education Natalia Ariza and her staff, and discussed ways to strengthen and promote bilateral relations between Colombia and New Zealand in education. The Colombian vice minister expressed interest in learning from New Zealand´s experience with the development of a comprehensive framework of educational standards, particularly with regard to the agricultural sector. During the meeting, teacher exchange opportunities between Colombia and New Zealand universities were raised, so that each could thoroughly understand the other’s educational systems and contribute to the educational development of their respective countries. Agreement was reached to coordinate the second round of bilateral consultations in Bogotá during the fourth quarter of 2015, to follow up on the initial consultations that took place during 2013 in Wellington, when Colombia´s mission went to New Zealand.

During the visit, the New Zealand mission gave a talk at Rosario University, met with representatives of Innpulsa, Colombia’s entrepreneurship promotion agency, and Productive Transformation Program, Colombia’s industrial policy agency. They also hosted a cocktail where attendees had the opportunity to hear about New Zealand’s educational offerings and meet representatives from leading universities of the Pacific nation.Minister Joyce also participated in the Innovation Forum where he shared data on the New Zealand’s education, highlighting achievements in technology and innovation and the possible application to the needs of Colombia .

“New Zealand is interested not only in attracting young Colombians to go to study in our country, but we are also interested in joint research, the huge opportunity that academic and student exchanges bring, as well as the opportunity to share our educational experience with Colombia,” said Minister Joyce.

An event was organized with Colfuturo, Colombia’s agency charged with supporting studies abroad by Colombians, to inform students and universities about opportunities to study at New Zealand academic institutions.”In New Zealand we are betting decisively on educational cooperation with Colombia. The potential is huge, because it goes from higher education to technical education and job training, especially in the agricultural sector. We are very optimistic about the results that we will get from these meetings with our partners in education, science and technology,” Minister Joyce added.