Norma Liliana Perez, Colombia

Innpulsa, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Agency of the Colombian Government, is an ally of Swiss Development Cooperation and Swisscontact for the implementation of the second component 2 of the programme “Colombia + Competitiva” (C+C), which seeks to support private and public stakeholders to close gaps in the country's value chains and clusters.

We face several challenges when executing public resources, due to the complex procedures and processes. Swisscontact and the C+C team accompany our work towards making our instruments more flexible and accessible to companies and entities in the regions. Swisscontact has been an ally and a great support to look for new ideas and new mechanisms, so that more actors and more regions can have access to the resources provided by the Colombian Government.

The C+C programme’s aspiration is to achieve a real impact in the regions, in terms of improvement in the quality of life, income of people and businesses in the regions and a greater participation of value chains and clusters in different markets. To achieve this, we are aligned with Swisscontact and hope to continue working hand in hand.