Land-use finance mapping in Colombia

1. Scoping summary

Main objectives of the study
To identify the main financial flows in the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector and explore strategies for channelling new sources of finance to support efforts towards climate change and forest conservation commitments within the Herencia Colombia Programme in the Caribbean and Central Andes mosaics.
Key policy framework
Herencia Colombia
Sources of finance
- International and domestic public finance
- Private finance
Type of finance
- Investments
- Loans
Typology framework
- Climate-aligned or ‘green’ finance: aligned with the objectives of conservation, protection or sustainable land use. This includes financing with a clear objective to mitigate climate change and/or adapt to it in the land-use sector.
- Conditionally aligned or ‘grey’ finance: does not have a stated objective to positively impact emissions in the AFOLU sector but has the potential to do so.
- Non-climate-aligned or ‘brown’ finance: carbon-intensive activities that have few or no safeguards against the resulting climate impacts. Non-climate-aligned finance is used to refer to investments in fossil fuels or that support activities that are clearly detrimental to the climate, e.g. deforestation.
Sectors covered
- Caribbean mosaic: coffee, cocoa, bananas, beef, tourism
- Andes mosaic: dairy, vegetables and tourism

Geographical scope
Caribbean and Central Andes mosaics
Period
2018–2023
Main data sources
- Public: Public Finance Information Systems (PIFS)
- Private: Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadísticas (DANE), aggregation information and surveys
Technical assistance
- EU REDD Facility
- WWF
Funding
- EU REDD Facility
- EU-funded Sustainable landscapes programme – Herencia Colombia
Time and budget
- Time: 18 months
- Budget: EUR 80 000

2. General objectives of the study

The Colombian Government channels significant efforts and resources to avoid deforestation through its National System of Protected Areas. However, this system faces a funding gap. Herencia Colombia was created in 2020 to close this gap and strengthen the management of protected areas within the framework of the peace building process, as well as to reduce deforestation in Colombia. This programme seeks to ensure the conservation and financing of 20 million hectares of protected areas over 20 years.

The land-use financing mapping aims to identify the main financial flows in the AFOLU sector. It also seeks to explore strategies to channel new sources of funding to meet the commitments of Herencia Colombia on climate change and forest conservation. In particular, it aims to identify new national public and private resources that can help closing the financial gap of Herencia Colombia. Thus the mapping seeks to identify both public investments associated with land use and private investments in the agricultural and tourism sectors made over the last five years in the Central Andes and Caribbean landscapes. These landscapes are the priority mosaics of Herencia Colombia and supported by the European Union’s Sustainable Landscapes programme.

The study is being finalised and more information on the results will soon be available on this website.