• The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Arturo Luna, and the Deputy Director-General at the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), Helena McLeod, signed a Memorandum of Understanding consolidating their alliance on bioeconomy and green growth issues for the country’s regions.
• The goal is to contribute to building sustainable territories with a view to Environmental Justice, Social Justice and Economic Justice, which are fundamental pillars of the Government of President Gustavo Petro.

Bogotá, D.C. February 2, 2023. Colombia is working to become a world power of life, and for this reason, the alignment of efforts with key allies is fundamental. This is why, through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, Minciencias and GGGI formalized their framework of cooperation, which facilitates collaboration between the two entities to strengthen knowledge, processes, products and high-level services derived from the sustainable use of biodiversity and biomass.

With this alliance, they seek to generate mechanisms for knowledge transfer and promotion of the implementation of the Colombian Green Growth policy (CONPES 3934 of 2018).

“At the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, we value these types of alliances that allow us to achieve the goals set by the Government Program of President Gustavo Petro ‘Colombia world power of life’, and also mission-oriented policies, particularly the Bioeconomy, Natural Ecosystems and Sustainable Territories Mission, which seeks to enhance sustainable territorial development through knowledge, conservation and exploitation of biodiversity and its ecosystem goods and services”, said Arturo Luna, Minister of Science.

With the signing of this memorandum, Minciencias and GGGI will intensify their cooperation strategies on issues related to green growth, bioeconomy, through acceleration processes of Bioproducts, as well as different actions related to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Since 2019, GGGI Colombia has actively worked with Minciencias in the implementation of the Green Growth Policy (2018) with an emphasis on the consolidation of the bioeconomy. Within this cooperation, GGGI has successfully implemented two phases of projects funded by the UK PACT program, which include two versions of MAPBIO for the acceleration of nine advanced stage bioproducts, three open innovation challenges focused on the development and use of biofertilizers, and the creation of a interinstitutional work group integrated by Minciencias, Mincomercio and Minambiente.

The agreement was signed at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation by Minister Arturo Luna Tapia, and Helena McLeod, Deputy Director-General and Head of the Green Growth Planning and Implementation Division at GGGI, who emphasized:

“With Minciencias as one of our closest government allies, we have positioned bioeconomy on a cross-sectoral agenda to highlight the gap between research and development and link the consolidation of the bioeconomy as a transversal opportunity between trade, science, technology, and the environment sector. We hope to continue taking advantage of our alliance, which to date shows excellent results with the strengthening of 12 projects with technical assistance and an investment of 480,000 dollars in last-mile actions for the entry or enhancement of the bioproducts market.”

At the signing of the memorandum, Minciencias was represented by the Vice Minister of Knowledge, Innovation and Productivity, Sergio Cristancho; the Vice Minister (e) of Talent and Social Appropriation of Knowledge, Gustavo González. From GGGI were Jennifer Zapata, director and head of Programs for Latin America and the Caribbean; Pablo Martínez, Country Representative; Cristian Rivera, Project Manager and María Clemencia Castellanos, Senior Subnational Associate.