Assignment task:
Colombia: Organizing for Competitiveness
Colombia had experienced decades of conflict fueled by drug trafficking and a complex network of guerrillas and paramilitary groups. Despite this, the country had managed to sustain positive economic growth and a measure of economic stability.1 Since President Alvaro Uribe had taken office in 2002, Colombia had achieved unprecedented security improvements which had boosted economic growth. However, the country was still registering growth rates well below successful mid-income countries.
In 2006, the government created the National System for Competitiveness (NSC), a new organization for economic planning and collaboration with the private sector. A national economic plan was released in 2008. The government and the Private Council on Competitiveness were evaluating whether the new plan and organizational structure was sufficient to put Colombia on a new economic trajectory.
Country Background
Colombia, with 45 million inhabitants, was located on the northwestern tip of South America, bordered by Panama towards the northwest, Venezuela and Brazil to the east, and Peru and Ecuador to the south. The country had access to both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean (see Exhibit 1). The Republic of Colombia was the fifth largest country in Latin America after Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Peru. With a surface area of 1,139,000 square kilometers, it was about the same size as South Africa and about twice the size of France. Colombia had the third largest Spanish-speaking population in the world after Mexico and Spain. The country was ethnically diverse, with descendants of indigenous natives, African slaves and immigrants from Europe and some Middle Eastern countries.
The country's geography was highly diverse, ranging from flat coastal lands and eastern plains to a number of peaks that rose above 15,000 feet in the three mountain ranges of Los Andes that stretched across the country from south to north. Despite being in the tropics, Colombia enjoyed a wide variety of year-round climates determined by the altitude of its regions and cities. Colombia's territory encompassed the Amazon rainforest as well as the wet forests of Chocó-Darién, placing Colombia among the world's top five countries in terms of biodiversity.2 While it occupied less than 1% of the surface of the earth, the country had 10% of all