Colombia

<p><span data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-CA">The project aims to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers by increasing linkages with Social Enterprises (SEs) and by improving SEs competitiveness and capabilities</span><span data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-CA">&nbsp;in selected countries in the Amazon basin (mainly Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana and Suriname), other countries in Latin America (such as Brazil and others tbc) as well as the Gran Chaco region (such as South Paraguay, North Argentina and Bolivia). Increased competitiveness will be achieved through&nbsp;</span><span data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-CA">the reinforcement of&nbsp;</span><span data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-CA">market systems</span><span data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-CA">, value addition, the establishment of commercial alliances, and the improvement of access to impact investment.</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335551550":6,"335551620":6,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'>&nbsp;</span></p><p><span data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-CA">The project will be implemented following the ITC&rsquo;s Alliance for Action (A4A) methodology that brings together public and private actors with the aim to promote competitiveness, sustainability and income-risk diversification, improving inclusive commercial linkages between value chain operators at national, regional and international levels.</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335551550":6,"335551620":6,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'>&nbsp;</span></p>

<p>This project will enhance ITC offerings of global public goods &nbsp; by advancing the development of additional functionalities within the Deforestation-Free Trade Gateway (DFTG) whose development has recently started in March 2024 under the ITC project C374. The DFTG aims to mitigate the potential impact of the new European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) on trade flows between Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and the European Union, particularly for economic operators involved in the production and trade of the commodities covered by the Regulation.</p><p>The project will enhance and simplify the utilization of the Producers registry by introducing an invitation mechanism. This mechanism will enable EU operators and exporters to collect and compile the farm-level information from their suppliers through the DFTG, facilitating the substantiation of their Due Diligence (DD) statements. Furthermore, EU operators and LAC exporters will be able to issue a DD self-statement document with the information they gathered through the invitation mechanism.</p><p>The new functionalities under development will undergo testing within the same value chain and pilot countries as the Producers&apos; registry.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The Youth Startup Academy Colombia project, financed by the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME), aims to incubate 800 young entrepreneurs in vulnerable regions of Colombia and to support 100 high impact technology based startups in Bogota and Medellin by 2026. To fulfil this goal, the project will adapt and implement the Korean Youth Startup Academy programme, the most successful Korean startup incubation and acceleration programme. The project will partner with various local institutions, including iNNpulsa, the government agency mandated to coordinate all startup entrepreneurship activities in Colombia. Throughout the project term(March 2024~December 2026), the project will run 4 intakes of entrepreneurs, and will provide training, mentoring and consulting services. For the implementation, the project will partner with the Government of Colombia (i.e. Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Tourism), the Korean Government (Ministry of SME and Startups, KOSME) and various agents in the Korean and Colombian startup ecosystem.</p>

<p>This project will enhance ITC offerings of global public goods through the development of a tool, the Deforestation-Free Trade Gateway (DFTG), aimed to mitigate the potential impact of the new European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) on trade flows between Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and the European Union, particularly for economic operators involved in the production and trade of the commodities covered by the Regulation.&nbsp;</p><p>The project will develop a functionality, the Deforestation-Free-Trade Producer Registry, for value chain operators in both European and Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries to gather evidence that the products they trade do not originate from deforested or forest degraded areas. Thus, &nbsp;the Deforestation-Free Producer Registry will gather the farm-level information that the EU operators need for issuing their Due Diligence Statement.</p>