In a gesture of transparency, Colombia’s government has created a webpage called MAPAregalias to track the $6.4 billion dollars in mining royalties used to finance development projects.
Colombia’s Department of National Planning, with the help of the Inter-American Development Bank, has unveiled an online website called, MAPAregalias that allows users to get information on public investment projects being financed by mining royalties.
Public investment in Colombia is 30% funded by mining royalties, according to the Department of National Planning.
The mapping system shows the exact amount of money and the municipalities that a total of 5,761 projects are being financed with $6.4 billion of royalties since 2012. On top of the royalties, an additional $3.6 billion of government funds is given over to national public investment projects.
The website allows users to filter the 5,761 projects by region, department, municipality, status of the project, sector, and sources of financing. Users can even filter by the type of mineral that that is being exploited in a project.
The $6.4 billion will be divided in the following manner (numbers are rounded):
- Caribbean region – 31%
- Eastern grass plains, Los Llanos – 27%
- Eastern central region – 12%
- Pacific region – 11%
- Coffee region – 11%
- Southern Amazon region -8%
And among the following sectors:
- Transport – 32%
- Housing – 15%
- Education – 13%
- Science and technology – 12%
- Agriculture – 8%
- Culture and sports – 4%
- Health – 4%
- Environment and sustainable development – 4%
- Social inclusion and reconciliation – 3%
- Mining and energy – 3%
- Commerce and tourism – 1%
The Caribbean coast and the Llanos eastern grass plains will collectively receive close to 60% of all resources.
According to the website, the largest 100 projects in the areas of safe drinking water and sanitation will benefit 2.3 million Colombians, which represent 35% of Colombians that lack potable water and basic sanitation.
The largest 50 transportation projects will construct and improve some 7,000 miles of roads.
Sources
- MAPAregalias (National Planning Department)