A little more than a year after leaving power, the government of President Gustavo Petro reaches the final stretch with its road map, the National Development Plan 2022-2026, showing a general fulfillment of 58.23% and although some strategic transformations advance with relative solidity, The reality behind all this shows a balance of as many shadows as lights.
A deep review of this document and the reports of the National Planning Department, made by Portfolio, showed that the results are unequal and persist lags on key fronts such as territorial planning, decent work and articulation between national and local.
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The data, with a cut on June 30, 2025, offer a first balance of the National Plan, which groups 228 sector indicators to monitor compliance with the great objectives of the “Government of Change” and on paper, more than half of the goals have significant advance, but the technical and political look of experts shows that it is not enough to fulfill figures if the pillars of development remain without coordinating.
Structural transformations are missing
The first thing to say is that the general progress of the PND is built on eight transformation axes. Of these, the human security and social justice leads the ranking with 64.69%execution, followed by regional convergence (60.89%), productive and internationalization transformation (59.45%) and a human right to food (59.02%).
Advances in the National Development Plan are disparate and not articulated.
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In contrast, the largest lags are concentrated in strategic areas such as the ordering of the territory around water and environmental justice, which barely reaches 40.48% advance, well below the average. They are also below 55% Total and integral peace lines (56.52%) and differential actors for change (50.93%).
As for the fiscal front, macroeconomic stability shows a compliance of 59.23%, although with a reduced universe of only three indicators. This pattern shows a clear tendency and that is that transformations aimed at expanding social rights have been more executable than those that require long -breath structural interventions and inter -institutional coordination.
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On the other hand, a more detailed look by sector reveals even more marked contrasts in which according to the official graph of the DNP, the intelligence sectors (100%), defense (95.5%), culture (79.3%), commerce (79.09%), sport (75.54%) and science and technology (73.5%); They lead the greatest advances.
Meanwhile, interior (32.05%), Presidency (40.88%), transport (43.03%), equality (45.1%), statistics (45.9%) and agriculture (49.25%); They stand out as the most left in compliance. The Treasury and Public Credit Sector shows an average advance, as well as education, health and social inclusion, which suggests that the social state pillars have had a uneven execution.
Advances in the National Development Plan are disparate and not articulated.
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Planning without teeth: criticism from within
Beyond the percentages, the gaze of those who were in the kitchen of the plan reveals deep failures. Jorge Iván González, who was the first director of the National Planning Department in the Petro Government and participated in the drafting of the document, is clear in saying that “planning in Colombia has a structural difficulty and we have not been able to create an institutionality that manages to maintain through the governments long -term projects. ”
According to González, in the country there is no institutional order that forces the following governments to continue strategic investments and added that “we are changing with enough flexibility and even irresponsibility of priorities, and we have not built an institutionality that thinks forward.”
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This void directly affects the execution of transformations such as ordering territorial, that the plan itself identifies as a central; If you take into account that González emphasizes that “one would like there to be an institution that told all the Pacific municipalities: as long as they do not have aqueduct, there is no other investment resource. But that hierarchy does not exist.”
The lack of articulation between the central level and the territorial entities is, for González, one of the great structural failures, explaining that “we put the order around the water as a priority, which obliges, among other things, to develop treatment plants. But we do nothing if a mayor decides that instead of aqueduct he will make a coliseum”.
Advances in the National Development Plan are disparate and not articulated.
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This institutional dilemma, which starts due to the inability to force national priorities, is also evident in strategic projects such as the Canoas treatment plant, key to decontaminating the Bogotá River, if you are present “how many years we have been fighting with the PTAR Canoas, or with municipalities of the Pacific that follow Without aqueduct, being one of the most rainy areas in the world, ”questioned the former director of the DNP.
Thus, this expert closed saying that, based on the fact that the government is preparing a law of powers that seeks to clarify and distribute functions between the nation and the territories; The proposal, which is still discussed, must deliver regulatory tools so that national plans do not depend on local political will.
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González specifically warns that the discussion runs the risk of deviatingsince “this debate would be fogging by disputes between sectors that seek more money, leaving aside the fundamental” and that the essential, is to establish an institutional authority capable of prioritizing with a country logic, and not short -term.
Together, the intermediate balance of the National Development Plan reveals a paradox in which there is technical and partial compliance with goals, but without the structure that guarantees real and lasting impact, that is to say that the plan progresses, but does not articulate; While the disconnection between the center and the regions, the institutional fragility to impose priorities, and the low results in fundamental sectors raise doubts about the legacy of the PND.
Advances in the National Development Plan are disparate and not articulated.
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Taking into account that a year is left to close the “change” agenda, it is not necessary As Jorge Iván González said, “there is still the opportunity to do things well,” but the clock runs.
Daniel Hernández Naranjo
Portfolio journalist
