1-11 June: Regional integration and metropolitan development in Colombia

INTA Panel Colombia INTA has been asked for a series of advisory panels and professional training programmes for public officials from Colombia and Chile, in collaboration with the UNCRD.

In the context of the South-South Cooperation Programme on Capacity Building for Integrated Regional Development Management, initiated in 2004, INTA has been approached by the Latin American and Caribbean Office of the United Nations Centre for Regional Development in Bogotá to carry out a series of professional training programmes for public officials in the Capital Region Bogotá-Cundinamarca and the Caribbean Region in Colombia.

UNCRD and INTA composed a team of 5 international experts to carry out two Advisory Panels of each 4 days in the two regions, on processes of regional integration. The programme took place from 1 June to 11 June 2010 in Bogotá and Barranquilla.

The programme aimed to strengthen capacities to advance the territorial planning processes and to facilitate agreements between stakeholders of the regions on key issues, based on a preliminary assessment of the characteristics and dynamics and needs of the processes in each of the regions. The programme provided the professionals of the territories with performing tools (physical-spatial, social, institutional, fiscal and financial) that can be applied in specific aspects of integration processes.

INTA Panel Colombia The first week, the Panel assisted the UN Centre for Regional Development in Latin America UNCRD-LAC in the programme for integrated regional development in Bogota-Cundinamarca. The Panel, composed of 15 people with 8 nationalities, considered the issues identified in discussions and activities since May 2009 within the framework of the postulates of the Capital Region Bogota Cundinamarca and in relation to the process of harmonization of territorial planning of Bogota DC and the surrounding municipalities of Sabana.

INTA UNCRD The Panel advanced the discussion on how to forge effective partnerships in the areas jointly defined as entities involved, to make recommendations about the kind of problems that can be addressed, the principles that should guide the development of land use plans. We also seek to identify specifically what is needed and how to reconcile competing objectives, determining what resources may be available, and what organizational and institutional processes are required to obtain the desired results. It is expected that the result of the panel will constitute the basis for the continuation of collective work between Bogotá and the municipalities in the process of revising the land use plans and in future commitments elaborated politically in a memorandum of understanding signed by the mayors of the involved territories.

INTA Caribe After the Panel in Bogotá-Cundinamarca, the INTA-UNCRD advisory panel continued to the Colombian Caribbean Region, where eight departments have recently developed initiatives to become a single administrative region to integrate development projects. The Panel seeked to strengthen the development process of the Caribbean Region and supported the development of the Caribbean Regional Corridor. The corridor is currently considered the project that can promote a more balanced, equitable and sustainable development, and serve as an integrator of all the Colombian Caribbean Region. The Panel helped define an effective chart, in order to progress the development of a Regional Corridor Strategic Plan as the basis for the development of the region and a regional urban system.