Colombia, a country heavily reliant on fossil fuel exports, is actively working to complete its low-carbon transition and achieve its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets under the Paris Climate Agreement.

To support these efforts, AFD has partnered with Colombian authorities to adapt the GEMMES macroeconomic model to Colombia's specific context. The objective was to assess the long-term macroeconomic vulnerabilities and opportunities linked to Colombia's energy transition within the broader global shift to low-carbon economies.

This research work has culminated in a collaborative publication, which outlines the scientific findings and public policy recommendations derived from the GEMMES Colombia project: Modelling low-carbon transitions in Colombia: Macrofinancial risks and opportunities

While macroeconomic modelling is crucial for understanding the impacts of policy decisions and addressing macroeconomic imbalances during transitions, it is equally important to consider the behavioral aspects that shape the decision-making processes and strategies of stakeholders involved in Colombia’s low-carbon transition.

Based on the empirical results reflected in the GEMMES model scenarios, this project aims to develop a strategy game for the collective exploration of future scenarios. Beyond economic and financial aspects, it also addresses the energy transition by integrating social and climate dimensions, as well as, to a lesser extent, biodiversity-related issues.

This participatory modelling process is designed to facilitate dialogue among key stakeholders in Colombia’s transition (ministries, central bank, entrepreneurs, researchers, etc.), enabling them to anticipate and prepare for the short-, medium-, and long-term macroeconomic impacts that a low-carbon transition may generate.

To this end, the serious game Powershift aims to:

• Familiarize stakeholders in Colombia’s energy transition with macroeconomic issues related to transitions, so they can take ownership of these topics;
• Identify the “mental models” of each category of stakeholders regarding the energy transition, in order to better highlight emerging tensions and synergies and help evolve perceptions;
• Make scientific frameworks accessible and engaging to support informed decision-making;
• Improve coordination between public institutions, economic actors, and researchers around energy transition challenges.

This project therefore seeks to strengthen high-level interministerial and cross-sectoral dialogue and, by extension, enhance coordination among stakeholders (including the private sector) in support of Colombia’s environmental commitments.

Download the project presentation leaflet

The design, modeling, and implementation of the strategy game are grounded in the ComMod methodology, initially developed by CIRAD to facilitate multi-stakeholder processes and support collective decision-making and action.

The process includes modelling workshops with stakeholders, crash-test sessions, and game workshops involving policymakers, financial actors, donors, researchers, private sector representatives, and civil society. Key stages include conceptualization, validation, and scenario exploration. Participants are free to define their own strategies; any crises or tensions that arise during the game result from the collective decisions made throughout the sessions.

An ex-ante and ex-post assessment of stakeholders’ positions makes it possible to measure the effects of the approach on knowledge, interactions among actors, and participants’ strategic capacities. Debriefing workshops have been organized with policymakers to ensure effective ownership of the findings.

The project has led to the creation of a strategy game that is now beginning to be used by Colombian counterparts to explore energy transition scenarios. To date, 3 crash-test sessions and 9 game sessions have been held, bringing together nearly 200 public and private stakeholders involved in the energy transition, as well as more than 50 different institutions. These include Colombian universities, ministries (finance, environment, labour, planning, housing, health, energy, agriculture, tourism), the central bank, financial supervisory authorities, commercial banks, research centres, international cooperation actors, NGOs, business associations, and consulting firms. Some sessions included the participation of vice-ministers.

The workshops helped strengthen dialogue at four levels: interministerial; cross-sectoral (with a strong diversity of public, private, academic, and international actors across all sessions); interdepartmental (notably through the mobilisation of the 14 departments of the Financial Superintendency); and public–private.

By mobilising this wide range of stakeholders, PowerShift has marked an important step in strengthening Franco-Colombian interministerial and cross-sectoral dialogue on the energy transition. Outputs include a project synthesis report, a research paper, policy recommendations, and knowledge-sharing materials. Key insights were shared through debriefing workshops with Colombian partners.

Find out more: 

• Summary of the workshops held in June 2024
• Summary of the workshops held in September 2024
• Replay of the restitution workshop & presentation

Feedback from participants in the sessions indicates an improved understanding of the effects of the energy transition on the real economy of a country heavily dependent on hydrocarbon exports, as well as increased awareness of the associated challenges.

Key comments include:

• Importance of the co-construction process: Developing the game with Colombian partners allowed for the integration of the country’s institutional and economic specificities, which enhanced its credibility and stakeholder engagement.
• Creation of a pedagogical space conducive to dialogue: The sessions facilitated contacts with actors who had not previously been engaged.
• Flexibility and adaptability: The tool demonstrated its ability to adapt to different audiences, making it a valuable asset for a variety of stakeholders.
• Awareness of the complexity of energy transition dynamics: The game highlighted the interdependencies between economic, climate, and social issues, as well as differences in priorities between institutions, helping to better understand potential obstacles to public action.
• Illumination of behavioral dynamics: The sessions revealed that organized collective action primarily emerges in response to urgent issues or shared problems.
• Challenge of a holistic vision: Participants noted that developing a comprehensive view of the energy transition and actors’ strategies is particularly difficult due to the complexity of the subject.
• Success factors for participatory approaches: The involvement of high-level decision-makers and the existence of a safe dialogue space were identified as key factors in fostering participant engagement.
• Limits of the exercise in a short timeframe: While the game facilitates understanding of systemic dynamics, translating this understanding into actionable solutions requires complementary measures and long-term follow-up.

Building on these achievements, potential avenues for extension could include:

• Technical support for potential application of the tool at the territorial level;
• Facilitation of international exchanges to share best practices in participatory dialogue;
• Further strengthening of public–private partnerships through continued use of the tool.

• Annabelle Moreau Santos, Scientific Mediation Officer, AFD
• Antoine Godin, Economist, Head of AFD Macroeconomic Modelling Team
• Julien Calas, Agronomist and Research Officer on Biodiversity, AFD

The design of the Colombian pension system exacerbates income inequality and poverty after retirement age. High informality rates (over 60% of total employment, according to OECD) imply that many workers in Colombia have a low probability of qualifying to get a contributory pension. Despite the targeted support provided to the vulnerable population through pension assistance programs, this support  tends to be low compared to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The relationship between informality and inequality after retirement plays a central role in the discussion of policies affecting the labour market. One dimension that has not been explored in the public policy debate is how policies aimed to mitigate climate change (and more specifically the creation of green jobs) can affect the distribution of workers between the formal and informal sectors, and how it can have an impact income inequality after retirement.

Find out more about the Extension in Colombia

This project seeks to contribute to the public policy debate by analysing the effects that scenarios of a green economic transformation may have on income inequality after retirement, via the reallocation of workers between the formal and informal labour markets. 

The project will aim to answer following questions, in the Colombian context:

• What are the environmental properties of jobs?
• How can economic transformation towards a more sustainable economy change the composition and transitions between the formal and informal sector?
• What is the impact on inequality and fiscal viability of implementing those policy scenarios?

In addition, the project will evaluate prospective scenarios during the discussion of the pension reform in the  Colombian Congress and will develop a simulation model for the use of the Ministry of Finance and Public  Credit.

The project will be implemented in three stages:

• The research team will first characterize the environmental properties of jobs in Colombia.
• In the second stage, the team will calibrate the transition matrices between employment states and wages to introduce to the microsimulation model. In this stage, the team will propose the economic transition scenarios to simulate.
• In the final stage of the project, the team will prepare a final report with the simulation results and policy discussion.

You will find below the different research papers related to this project:

• Quantifying Green Job Potential in Colombia: A Task-Based Approach (November 2024)
• Greening Colombia’s Energy: The Future of Jobs and Pensions (August 2025)

While there is mounting evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic has increased socioeconomic inequality, there is still a need to understand the exact channels of impact and what role the policy response has played in different contexts. It is also necessary for governments to be clear about the efficiency of the type of policies they have implemented throughout this period, in terms of the redistributive and/or regressive effect both from an inequality and poverty perspective. Indeed, we know that the amount of additional social spending (excluding health) implemented during the pandemic reached almost 3% of GDP in Colombia and only 0,2% in Mexico. However, research has not yet demonstrated whether the redistributive policies introduced by the Mexican and Colombian governments in response to the Covid-19 crisis have had any positive effect on the distribution of economic and social resources in these two countries.

The project will seek to understand what has been the redistributive impact of social and fiscal policy in Mexico and Colombia, in the context of the policies implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This research project will be conducted as follows: 

1. Using the framework of the Commitment to Equity (CEQ) methodology, an analysis aiming to differentiate what has been the progressivity or regressivity of the policies implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic will be conducted. This analysis will take into account the main beneficiary groups of these policies and will include a comparison between the budget amount and the efficiency of the policies identified in terms of inequality and poverty reduction.  
2. A desktop analysis of the decision-making will also be carried out to understand how the redistributive effects of the policies implemented were envisaged by the governments. 

The results of this project are presented in the following research paper: Promoting a More Progressive Approach - Evaluating the Impact of Social and Fiscal Policies in Mexico and Colombia amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic (2025)

This research paper analyzes the redistributive impact of some fiscal policies and social programmes (direct taxes and transfers) before and after the pandemic Crisis in Mexico and Colombia, following the CEQ methodology. 

Download the paper

To prioritize their actions to conserve natural capital and assess their effectiveness, public actors need to monitor the state of the environment objectively. To do so, they must be able to rely on science-based reference values.

Developed with this in mind, the ESGAP (Environmental Sustainability Gap) is an innovative method for calculating indicators that assesses the distance between the state of a territory’s critical environmental functions (air or water quality, pollution, forest resources, fisheries, etc.) and their sustainability level.

For several years, AFD has supported research to test this tool in different contexts (New Caledonia, Kenya and Vietnam). With this new project, it sought to refine how ESGAP can reflect the state of biodiversity and serve as a guide for public policies to estimate and preserve the critical functions of the natural capital of a given country.

Building on the lessons learned in other countries, the researchers implemented the ESGAP framework in Colombia and South Africa and tested its relevance in fostering dialogue on environmental public policies. To this end, University College London and the Basque Centre for Climate Change partnered with teams from Stellenbosch University (South Africa) and the National University of Colombia (UNAL).

The project had four objectives:

1. Improving the ESGAP indicators related to biodiversity and the state of ecosystems that could be used by the Colombian and South African governments, and promoting the use of science-based targets by public authorities;
2. Promoting reflection on strong sustainability in Colombia and South Africa through the ESGAP framework, by assessing whether the development of these countries lies within the safe operating space for humanity;
3. Clarifying how the ESGAP framework aligns with, complements and adds value to other types of sustainability indicators that both governments already use;
4. Beyond the research work, strengthening the capacity of partner countries to use the ESGAP framework, notably through training activities for postgraduate students and awareness-raising activities for policymakers.

The ESGAP framework is based on a dashboard that provides information on changes in the state of 23 components of the environment. These components cover the 4 main categories of critical and essential environmental functions: resource provision, pollution reprocessing, biodiversity maintenance and human health.

Their state at a given point in time is compared with a value that science considers “sustainable” (i.e., compatible with the preservation of life and human activities). The difference between the two is the “environmental sustainability gap”: the wider the gap, the longer the path to environmental sustainability.

The scores for the 23 components are then aggregated to provide an overall picture of the state of the environment, scored out of 100. A score of 100/100 would be achieved if the indicators for all components matched the sustainability reference values.

Learn more about the ESGAP methodology

• Toward a reliable assessment of the environmental sustainability of territories (2021)
• Are we on the right path? Measuring progress towards environmental sustainability in European countries (2022)

The research project helped further develop the ESGAP tool by testing its relevance for countries where environmental data may be less accessible and data infrastructure less advanced. It also deepened reflection on how to operationalize the ESGAP framework, particularly its complementarity with other indicators.

In Colombia and South Africa, specific work was carried out to improve the indicators related to biodiversity maintenance because, although both countries had a regulatory framework and natural resource management in place, not all data – particularly on biodiversity – were always available.

In terms of capacity building, five students and early-career researchers – four of them women – took part in this research as part of their training. The results were also presented to the Colombian and South African public authorities.

At the end of the project, a webinar in the “Research Conversations” series presented the results of the articles to the scientific community.

The ESGAP framework is a replicable tool for monitoring a country’s environmental sustainability and can inform public decision-makers about the action needed. Complementary to other indicators, it underscores the importance of science-based sustainability reference values for properly assessing the effectiveness of environmental public policies.

The ESGAP approach is recent but is gaining scientific legitimacy. It is currently considered to produce the most credible strong sustainability development indicators (Neumayer, 2025). It has also been cited as a methodology particularly well suited to assessing national policy frameworks for environmental sustainability (by WWF) and to assessing nature-related financial risks (by the NGFS).

Climate change education (CCE) encompasses school and out-of-school activities that: teach skills and knowledge about climate change mitigation (such as sustainable lifestyles) and adaptation (such as disaster risk reduction); promote safe and sustainable learning spaces; actively engage communities as agents of change; and strengthen collaboration between policy makers and researchers in education and climate. It can take different forms (laboratory activities, school projects, etc.).

Despite the growing number of scientific studies on CCE, the concrete effects of these educational interventions remain uncertain. This is why, following a call for research proposals, AFD has selected two projects for systematic reviews of the existing literature and its main gaps: 

1. The first project focuses on the effects of climate change education on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of schoolchildren and their entourage; it is carried out by a team of researchers from the departments of psychology and natural sciences of the University of Rosario in Colombia.
2. The second focuses on the effects of climate change education on behaviour and norms; it is led by a team of researchers from the Groupe d’Analyse et de Théorie Economique (GATE-CNRS) and the Department of Experimental Economics at the University of Rosario in Colombia.

The study conducted by the University of Rosario analyses the impacts of climate change education according to the type of intervention (“traditional”, immersive, innovative teaching activities, etc.) and the strategies mobilized (based on knowledge, habits, emotions…). It aims to assess the effects of these different interventions on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of preschool and school-age children and their entourage, with a focus on their sociodemographic characteristics. 

The study led by GATE-CNRS examines the impact of climate change education on the behaviours and the social norms that shape behaviors and expectations  of children and young adults within society, through the prism of behavioral sciences. It aims to identify educational activities and content that promote changes in social norms, as well as possible cognitive biases and cultural and normative barriers. This systematic review will be supplemented by a research experiment conducted by GATE-CNRS.

Both research projects are based on systematic reviews, namely rigorous and reproducible syntheses of the results of all existing original studies answering the same research question, which makes it possible to identify, select, evaluate and summarize primary studies, data and research findings on this issue.

The study led by the University of Rosario adopts the PIO (Population, Intervention, Results) methodology, which helps in the formulation of the research question and the realization of bibliographic research. A comparative analysis is then conducted to assess the effects of education on different populations (for example, younger students versus older students, etc.).

The study conducted by GATE-CNRS uses the PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Result) approach, in which a comparative analysis allows to evaluate the most popular, effective or reliable types of interventions from a methodological point of view, behaviours and social norms, with a focus on intervention contexts. An experimental study conducted in France and Colombia will then aim to fill some gaps observed in the literature by testing two hypotheses: 

1. immersive educational activities are more effective than traditional activities in inducing pro-environmental behaviours and normative changes;
2. the level of adherence to norms and civic engagement in both countries result in a different propensity to engage.

Each of the two research projects resulted in a “Policy Dialogue” publication, presented at COP28, as well as a research paper published in the collections of Editions Agence française de développement. The project of the GATE-CNRS team will also give rise to a second research paper presenting the results of the field experiment.

A webinar from the “Research Conversations” series, held in April 2025 to present the latest findings, is available for replay (in French with English subtitles):

The two systematic literature reviews highlight gaps in research on climate change education, but also some promising results for this area of intervention.

The study conducted by the University of Rosario highlights, among other things, the omission of the gender equality lens, the difficulties in analyzing the effectiveness of long-term interventions, and the fact that research focuses more on the effects on knowledge than on behaviour. The study also highlights that the most relevant interventions are those that mobilize innovative pedagogies, that are based on information drawing on personal experiences, and that generate positive emotions, while those based on negative emotions can have counterproductive effects.

The study led by the GATE-CNRS finds that the types of intervention are very diverse. Projects based on concrete activities, those that combine several types of interventions and those that involve several stakeholders (teachers, students, etc.) lead to more convincing results. The study also highlights the very small amount of work that focuses on social norms; the fact that this research is conducted mainly in high-income countries and in urban areas; and that it focuses on recycling and waste behaviours, easily observable, neglecting behaviours with a greater impact on climate (transport, etc.).

The results of the experimental study are expected by the end of 2025.

• Dr. Cecilia Poggi, Research Officer, AFD
• Dr. Linda Zanfini, Research Officer, AFD
• Dr. Benjamin Quesada, Associate Professor, Earth System Science Director, Research Group Leader "Interactions Climate-Ecosystems" (ICE), University of Rosario (Colombia)
• Dr. Fabio Galeotti, CNRS researcher at the Groupe d’Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Etienne (GATE), Head of the 'Experimental economics' research group at GATE (France)