The review examines how higher education institutions are supporting innovation and entrepreneurship in their surrounding communities. The study focuses on eleven universities located in six countries in Latin America: Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. The study finds that selected institutions are actively supporting entrepreneurs (university students, but also local entrepreneurs) through courses, incubation and acceleration activities. It also shows that universities are actively engaging with external stakeholders in their surrounding communities, to spur innovation through joint-research, organisation of events (such as festivals, competition). It finds that that while COVID-19 pandemic brought about some challenges, universities managed to stay afloat and keep a steady stream of support to entrepreneurs and partners. The review also illustrates the challenges that universities face when developing these activities (lack of funding, unclear regulation for intellectual property development, etc.) and highlights some opportunities that universities should leverage, particularly in the current context.
Labour informality remains a critical challenge for Colombia with over 60% of workers in informal jobs with no access to social security benefits, except health. To address the inherent challenges posed by a large informal sector, this paper explores the role that cooperatives can play in driving formalisation in Colombia. It presents the negative impacts of informality on the economy and how the social and solidarity economy, and cooperatives in particular, offer an important model for informal workers to transit towards formalisation (Section 1). It provides facts and figures about the cooperative sector as well as factors contributing to its development and barriers that hinder its expansion (Section 2). It considers the benefits and challenges of the compliance based approach to supervise cooperatives and provides policy orientations to strengthen the sector (Section 3).
In 2017, Colombia launched a novel public policy to stimulate the creative economy, building on the success of previous policy initiatives to support the cultural and creative sectors. The Orange Economy policy is unique for its transversal approach to supporting the creative economy and mainstreaming culture across diverse policy portfolios, beyond cultural policy. The report provides a comparative overview of Colombia’s culture and creative sectors relative to OECD peers and reviews progress in policy implementation. It provides a specific focus on Colombia’s push to foster creative districts as tool for local development across the country, including policy examples based on nine districts across the globe. The report maps the financial ecosystem for the creative economy in Colombia. Recommendations draw on international good practice to suggest ways Colombia can best leverage creative economy opportunities.
The COVID-19 crisis has had a profound impact on SME access to finance. In particular, the sudden drop in revenues created acute liquidity shortages, threatening the survival of many viable businesses. The report documents an increase in demand for bank lending in the first half of 2020, and a steady supply of credit thanks to government interventions. On the other hand, other sources of finance declined, in particular early-stage equity. This paper, a special edition of Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs, focuses on the impacts of COVID-19 on SME access to finance, along with government policy responses. It reveals that the pre-crisis financing environment was broadly favourable for SMEs and entrepreneurs, who benefited from low interest rates, loose credit standards and an increasingly diverse offer of financing instruments. It documents the unprecedented scope and scale of the policy responses undertaken by governments world-wide, and details their key characteristics, and outlines the principal issues and policy challenges for the next phases of the pandemic, such as the over-indebtedness of SMEs and the need to continue to foster a diverse range of financing instruments for SMEs.
OECD Reviews of Digital Transformation: Going Digital in Colombia analyses recent developments of the digital economy in the country, reviews policies related to digitalisation and makes recommendations to increase policy coherence in this area. The report examines recent developments in infrastructures for the digital economy, telecom markets and related regulations and policies in Colombia. It reviews trends in the use of digital technologies by individuals, businesses and the government, and examines policies to foster diffusion. The report also examines opportunities and challenges raised by digitalisation for production, innovation, jobs and skills. The report reconsiders these policies in relation to their coherence among different domains and in order to foster synergies across government ministries, levels and institutions, based on the integrated policy framework of the OECD's Going Digital: Making the Transformation Work for Growth and Well-being project.
Colombia, the fourth largest economy in Latin America, is back on track after decades of conflict. The country is looking to open up opportunities by addressing structural challenges, further benefiting from trade and investment, and increasing productivity. Colombia's march towards prosperity requires transforming the economy through a renewed policy approach that prioritises an expanded knowledge base, unlocks regional potential and fast tracks digital technologies. The success will depend on Colombia’s capacity to leverage its long-standing planning capacity and its ability to bring together all the relevant stakeholders. The Production Transformation Policy Review (PTPR) of Colombia provides a novel and timely assessment of the country's industrialisation strategies. It relies on international peer learning and domestic consensus building, and benefited from knowledge sharing through the OECD Initiative for Policy Dialogue on Global Value Chains, Production Transformation and Development.
Latin America and the Caribbean’s (LAC) GDP will shrink by between 0.9% and 1% in 2016, according to the latest estimates, the second consecutive year of negative growth and a rate of contraction the region has not seen since the early 1980s. According to the Latin American Economic Outlook 2017, the region should recover in 2017, but with modest GDP growth of between 1.5% and 2%, below expected growth in advanced economies.
The project provided recommendations to the city of Medellin and Antioquia to support the development of the local economy and includes a focus on how the innovative environment can be strengthened to support inclusion, entrepreneurship, SME, and local developmentto and how to better coordinate and integrate its policies with the national level.
This review offers a comprehensive assessment of the innovation system of Colombia, focusing on the role of government. It provides concrete recommendations on how to improve policies that affect innovation performance, including R&D policies and identifies good practices from which other countries can learn. The Overall assessment and recommendations is also available in French and Spanish.