The COVID-19 pandemic and its economic and social consequences hit cities hard, while also revealing their agility and capacity to protect urban dwellers and re-emphasising their potential to drive sustainable growth and well-being in the long term. The crisis has also magnified the pressing and emerging challenges that cities face worldwide, and in, doing so, accelerated momentum towards a new urban paradigm of smart, sustainable and inclusive cities. However, cities cannot embrace the magnitude of such challenges on their own and need to work closely with national governments. National urban policies (NUPs), which provide an overarching, strategic and shared vision across levels of government to support more balanced, polycentric and quality urbanisation, constitute a critical tool to underpin cities’ recovery efforts in the post-COVID-19 era.
For over two decades, the OECD has assisted countries in their efforts to solve both traditional urban challenges (e.g. urban sprawl, mobility, and inequality) and, more recently, emerging issues (e.g. digitalisation, climate change) through place-specific urban policy reviews and cross-cutting thematic studies. Drawing on this accumulated expertise, the OECD Principles on Urban Policy crystallise the experience of the Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC) and its Working Party on Urban Policy into a one-stop shop international framework through which policy makers at all levels can share their own experiences of urban policy and governance and learn from international practices.
In this context, the OECD Urban Policy Review of Colombia aims to inform the ongoing policy debate on Colombia’s new NUP - “Cities 4.0” (Ciudades 4.0). To that effect, this review assesses the main trends and challenges in Colombia’s urbanisation, compares the current NUP to international practices, and proposes a set of recommendations to unlock the potential of the new NUP and its governance framework.
This report is part of the OECD Urban Studies series and supports the implementation of the Programme of Work and Budget of the OECD RDPC. The report was approved by written procedure on 17 January 2022 under cote [CFE/RDPC/URB(2021)25].