UKPACT IV: Accelerating development of new bioeconomy businesses Since 2019, the Colombian Government and GGGI have been supporting the development of Colombia's bioeconomy and implementation of the long-term Green Growth Policy (Conpes 3934 of 2018). This has been achieved via interventions such as on-demand policy advisory, bioeconomy business acceleration and open innovation challenges, an embedded bioeconomy task force, capacity building for green jobs promotion, and reinforcement of GGP tracking, reporting and integration with 2030 Agenda.

The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Minciencias) has become a key national ally for the implementation of bioeconomy programs, projects, and actions. Together, GGGI and Minciencias have joined efforts in the implementation of projects CO04, CO12 and CO20. A particular highlight of this work has been:

- The development of the Bioeconomy Mission “For a living and diverse Colombia Power: towards a Knowledge-driven Society”,

- The launch and scale-up for the Bioeconomy Projects Acceleration Mechanism -MAPBIO,

- The development of bioeconomy open innovation challenges with iNNpulsa that seek solutions through science, technology and innovation to business and/or sectoral problems that can be addressed by biotechnology.

- The set up of an interinstitutional bioeconomy taskforce that includes the ministries of Commerce, Tourism and Industry; Science, Technology and Innovation; and Environment and Sustainable Development

A new phase of support was approved for 2023, and GGGI has been asked by UKPACT to continue assistance in similar areas of intervention including:

- Developing and implementing a sustainability plan for MAPBIO, to set the basis for a long-term acceleration mechanism within Ministry of Science MinCiencias, involving key stakeholders

- An updated strategy for the Private sector challenges in partnership with iNNpulsa.

- The continuation and update effort under the Green Growth Policy/Bioeconomy Taskforce. The proposed extension complements the previous phase by acting on the supply side of new bioproducts, working with INNpulsa and Minciencias to accelerate these products into the commercial phase. This will help the national Government accomplish the 500 bioproducts by 2030 goal established in the Green Growth Policy and the Bioeconomy Strategy. Similarly, a second round of the bioeconomy open innovation challenges that, after initial scoping with Minagricultura, could be focused on biopesticides, is directly complementary to the first round of challenges focused on biofertilizers. Lastly, the enhancement of the bioeconomy taskforce complements the flow of bioeconomy information between related institutions in terms of national information available for decision makers, researchers and citizens about the behaviour of Bioeconomy indicators such as contribution to GDP, job creation, social inclusion, among others.

In addition, it improves and expands on the results from the previous phase by focalizing the resources on bioeconomy mechanisms like MAPBIO, the Open Innovation Challenges, and the Bioeconomy Taskforce. It also expands on the knowledge-sharing approach by supporting the creation of a knowledge exchange network among the companies that have been part of the three cohorts of the MAPBIO mechanism, organizing a business fair with possible investors as a kick-off event for the sustainability strategy and with the beneficiaries of the three cohorts of MAPBIO, among others.

The proposed extension secures results from the previous phase by integrating lessons learned into the new government officials while reinforcing key institutions through knowledge sharing and a focused engagement with bioeconomy issues.