Colombia,
A Positive Country
Prepared by:
Affairs Coordinator
Internal and External Communications
Ministry of Foreign Relations
ON THE FRONT PAGE
• COLOMBIA’S GOVERNABILITY IMPROVED: the government’s
effectiveness went from 41.3% in 2002, to 51% in 2004, and control
of corruption went from 37.8% in 2002 to 52.2% in 2004. It improved
in five of the six governability indicators according the World
Bank. In Participation and Accountability it went from 30.8%
in 2002 to 34.5% in 2004. These results stopped the trend since
1996 toward decreasing figures, and the country is now above
the average for Latin America for these two indicators. Political
Stability went from 3.8% to 5.8%.
• THE BEST YOUNG LAWYER IN SPAIN
IS COLOMBIAN: Felipe
Quintero Serrano, a 25-year-old from Bogotá, is the first
foreigner to win the prize for Young Lawyers in Spain. He was
given the award in the high-level prestigious competition organized
by the University of Navarra and the Garrigues Lawyers’ Firm
Foundation, which promotes excellence in the knowledge and application
of Corporate Law in that country. In the competition for lawyers
under 26 in Spain, Quintero was chosen from 29 professionals
who were subjected to two rigorous tests.
SOCIAL INVESTMENT
• FIFTEENTH BOLIVARIAN GAMES: from August 12 to 21, Armenia,
Pereira and Cartagena will host the Fifteenth Bolivarian Games,
in which 2,184 athletes from Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru,
Venezuela, and Panama will compete. The government has invested
$21 billion in this event to remodel sports facilities and to
prepare the delegates from Colombia. The resources come from
Coldeportes’ budget and from a percentage of the four additional
points of sales tax on cellular telephone usage.
• AID FOR VICTIMS OF THE HEAVY
RAIN: humanitarian aid in the amount of $4,500 million has
been handed over by the government
to help the 53,455 victims of the rainy season. Those affected
are located in 76 municipalities in 19 Departments, where there
have been 23 dead, 43 wounded, and 5 people reported missing.
The weather situation destroyed 53 homes and damaged 5,812.
• FAMILIES IN ACTION REACHES
MUNICIPALITIES WITHOUT BANKS: the Families in Action program, under Plan Colombia, will begin
a pilot project in three municipalities of the country that do
not have a banking institutions, to find out how the payment
of the subsidies for nutrition and education assigned by the
program will work. The chosen populations are Cotorra and La
Apartada, in Córdoba, and Nimaima in Cundinamarca.
SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH AND GENERATION OF EMPLOYMENT
• VENEZUELAN TOURISTS TO VISIT
CARTAGENA: in what is left of 2005, more than 2,000 Venezuelans
will visit the heroic city
thanks to the campaign by Proexport with businessmen from the
tourism sector of the neighboring country. That goal was established
at the business conference organized by the organization, within
the framework of the Week of Cartagena de Indias in Caracas with
the sponsorship of the Colombian Embassy. The business conference
was attended by 14 companies from Cartagena and 44 Venezuelan
travel agencies.
• WTO WILL FINANCE INNS FOR TOURISM: the World Tourism
Organization announced its plan to finance the Tourist Inns program,
through the ST-EP, being developed by the government in this
country. The initiative seeks to support sustainable tourism
projects that are oriented toward eliminating poverty. To review
the program’s viability, a delegate from the international
organization will arrive in the country at the end of the month
to learn about the National Tourism Policy, its implementation
level, the most relevant action programs, and the problems the
sector currently faces.
STATE EFFICIENCY AND TRANSPARENCY
• TEACHERS TO BE SELECTED IN
DECEMBER: the national government will select new teachers, putting an
end to the provisional conditions
existing for teachers in various regions of the country. This
methodology of hiring teachers by means of a contest was designed
by the government last year, and allowed it to choose close to
50 thousand teachers who are now in a probationary period and
the process of admission.
DEMOCRATIC SECURITY
• $1 TRILLION TO BE INVESTED
IN DISPLACED PERSONS IN 2005-2006: close to 18 thousand families
returned to their places of origin,
and the results of coordinated action by 14 state institutions
have been: 120 thousand new spots in schools for 2005; 14 thousand
urban housing subsidies and 1,300 rural housing subsidies; 100
thousand displaced families will enter the Families in Action
program this year; 2 million food rations distributed in 2004.
In addition, eight hundred families are getting ready to receive
new land through Incoder (the Colombian Institute for Rural Development).
(FIN/JHINA/CIE)
May 20, 2005
