Colombia Announces 4-Year Development Plan Worth USD 250 Bn

Colombia's government presented a $247.1 billion four-year development plan to the country's lawmakers on Monday (February 6), outlining the country's projected social and economic investments.

The so-called National Development Plan must be approved by Congress, where leftist President Gustavo Petro has forged a coalition that easily passed a tax reform last year, though dissent has grown amid proposed pension and health-care reforms.

Development plans are typically funded through annual budgets, royalties from oil and mining projects, and resources from municipalities and provinces across the country.

Petro, Colombia's first leftist president, has promised to seek peace or surrender deals with armed groups, to reduce poverty, to improve access to education and health care, and to protect environment.

The plan's passage would also give Petro extraordinary powers to sign decrees or regulations on issues such as closing or restructuring state-owned electricity companies, as well as regulating alternative uses of coca - the main ingredient in cocaine - and cannabis.

Petro says he wants to put an end to Colombia's internal armed conflict, which has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions for nearly six decades.

He has promised to fully implement a 2016 peace agreement with the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and has reopened talks with the National Liberation Army, a leftist rebel group (ELN). 

Petro has also offered criminal gangs with drug trafficking ties the opportunity to surrender in exchange for reduced sentences.