Colombia

Activities in Colombia date back to 1995, when the NCEA reviewed an ESIA for the so-called tidal inlet project near Cartagena. In an MoU with the Ministry of Environment (2007-1010), the NCEA provided support on the implementation of SEA.

In 2013, the NCEA reviewed an ESIA for the dredging of the Cartagena Bay access channel. More recent activities include advisory work on ESIA for offshore wind energy in the framework of an MoU with the Colombia Environmental Licensing Agency (ANLA) and on the Dutch supported Water as Leverage project in Cartagena.
In 2024, ANLA wished to continue collaboration through an updated version of the MoU. At that occasion, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MADS) suggested to instead develop a tripartite MoU.

In 2025, under this new MoU, the NCEA provided a training on SEA applied to Marine Spatial Planning. We also contributed to two major events organized by ANLA, where we emphasized the role of SEA in shaping development visions. As part of the support to the Water as Leverage programme, an NCEA working group visited Cartagena in March 2025 to review the quality of 5 ESIA scoping reports that were produced by the various project consortia.