Colombia's Expat Business Voice Sets Tough Policy Test for New President

An Appeal from Abroad for a National Development Blueprint

Ahead of the inauguration, a commentary from Colombians observing the country from abroad has laid out a series of unresolved questions that the new government should address in its first speech to the nation. The piece, published in La República, argues that despite Colombia’s abundant natural resources, dual-ocean access, creative population and renewable energy potential, these strengths have not translated into sustained productive investment, stable jobs or material improvements in living standards.

The authors call on the incoming administration to go beyond campaign rhetoric and clearly diagnose the main obstacles—starting with security and state presence—and lay out a sequenced roadmap to turn national potential into tangible development. The six critical areas identified span restoring order against illegal armed groups, fixing infrastructure planning and procurement, turning clean energy resources into industrial projects, aligning education with the digital economy, and building national technological capabilities through strategic international partnerships.

On infrastructure, the commentary zeroes in on the chronic delays plaguing strategic projects and suggests that the entire system of planning, licensing, financing and execution may be excessively complex, with dispersed responsibilities and drawn-out approvals. It specifically questions whether the public-private partnership (PPP) model proven on highways can be applied to railways without adaptation, warning that overly restrictive participation rules could stifle competition and harm national interests in cost and quality.

Regarding energy, the piece asks why Colombia’s hydro, solar and wind resources have not yielded large-scale investment and industrial projects. It points to a possible combination of licensing hurdles, insufficient transmission and storage, community concertation challenges and policy instability. The demand is clear: the government should articulate which barriers it will tackle first and how it will weave energy generation, transmission, equipment manufacturing, technology services and skills training into a single industrial ecosystem to attract data centres, advanced manufacturing and export income.

Decoding Colombia's Development Bottlenecks: Security, Infrastructure and Energy

Beyond Crime: The State's Full Territorial Reach

The commentary positions security as the foundation—without confronting illegal armed groups, drug trafficking and illegal mining, investment and industrial development cannot take root. But it goes further, arguing that the state’s role doesn’t end with law enforcement; the simultaneous extension of transport, education, health and justice services is what will truly integrate long-neglected regions. This linkage of security and institutional presence is a departure from a purely militarized approach and aligns with modern development thinking that sees state legitimacy as a precondition for private investment.

Why Colombia’s Railway Dreams Keep Stalling

The critique of the PPP model as applied to rail is specific and pragmatic. The authors warn that simply replicating the road-concession framework for railways fails to account for the integrated nature of rail systems—tracks, rolling stock, signalling, power, operation and maintenance must be procured as a coherent whole. They highlight the risk that excessively restrictive participation conditions may lock out technically and financially capable firms, reducing competition and ultimately harming the national interest. This is a call for a fundamental review of the institutional architecture governing major works, not just a tweak to individual project scopes.

Clean Energy: Why Potential Remains Stalled

Colombia’s renewable portfolio is unquestioned, yet the piece asks bluntly why this has not translated into concrete projects and large-scale industrial investments. The probable suspects are drawn from typical emerging-market hurdles: slow licensing, inadequate transmission grids and storage systems, difficulties in social consultation, and a history of policy discontinuity that undermines investment certainty. The article’s real insight is to treat these not as isolated problems but as symptoms of a missing industrial ecosystem that would link generation, manufacturing, tech services and workforce training—transforming cheap power into a magnet for data centres and advanced industry that then funds education and innovation.

From Talent to Intellectual Property

The authors note Colombians’ natural creativity and ability to reinterpret global culture, which they see as an asset for music, audiovisual, design and digital content. Yet they argue that the education system must now equip people not just with coding but with problem-solving, interdisciplinary thinking, languages and the ability to turn ideas into intellectual property and businesses. This is a direct call for aligning education with the emerging demands of an AI-driven global economy—a shift that would determine whether the country exports raw creativity or high-value digital products.

The Policy Signals Investors Must Watch for in the Inaugural Speech

For investors and business leaders, the inaugural speech and the government’s first 100 days will send crucial signals. Based on the demands laid out, here are the concrete commitments to watch for:

• Security blueprint: A clear strategy to dismantle illegal armed groups and regain territorial control, with a timeline for restoring state services to neglected regions.
• Infrastructure revamp commitment: An explicit announcement to review the entire project-planning and approval system, not just individual road PPPs, and a specific mandate to design a rail-specific PPP framework that prevents restrictive prequalification from stifling competition.
• Energy licensing overhaul: A public identification of the top barriers (e.g., licensing backlogs, transmission interconnection queues, social licence protocols) and a sequenced plan to remove them, coupled with an industrial policy linking clean generation to data centre and manufacturing attraction.
• Education reform targeting the digital economy: A proposal to infuse problem-solving, IP creation and bilingualism into curricula, with concrete partnerships with industry to co-design training programmes for AI-era jobs.
• International cooperation with national capacity clauses: Any mention of strategic partnerships with allies should include specific mechanisms to mandate technology transfer, local supplier development and export promotion—not just capital inflows.

Absent such specificity, the commentary’s authors warn, the inauguration risks being just the last speech of the campaign rather than the first act of a government capable of breaking Colombia’s cycle of unfulfilled potential.