The Colombian government presented a bill to the Congress of the Republic that establishes the National Development Plan for 2014-2018 (PND). The plan is called Todos por un Nuevo País [All for a New Country] and allows the government to lay down the lines of strategy for the public policies proposed by the president of the Republic through his cabinet. The PND is the legal tool for monitoring delivery by the executive branch of the government on the nation’s long-term targets and objectives, medium-term goals and priorities and the guidelines for economic, social and environmental policy that the government will adopt.

The PND 2014-2018 is based on three pillars of the government’s economic policies:

1. Peace: The PND does not limit the proposed reforms on signing an agreement in Havana.
2. Fairness: The PND recognised that social inequality is the government’s main concern, because of its significant impact on poverty and violence.
3. Education: The PND establishes that the development of human capital is a necessary condition for fostering economic growth, so an increase in the quality and coverage of the educational system has a vital part to play in reducing social inequalities.

The PND establishes five transversal strategies to mainstream these three policy pillars:

1. Strategic infrastructure and competitiveness, which is seen as essential to boost economic growth.
2. Social mobility, through increased quality and coverage of the educational and health systems.
3. Transformation of the countryside and green growth, trying to reduce the gap between rural and urban environments.
4. Consolidation of the welfare state in Colombia, and
5. Good governance, to consolidate a modern, more transparent, efficient and efficacious state.

The plan endeavours to impact the development of production in the country, especially in those sectors at the base of the income pyramid. This is where the microfinance industry and the government sector must play an active role in encouraging entrepreneurship in micro and small enterprises. The generation of opportunities in production must, necessarily, be accompanied by an increase in the supply of microcredit to facilitate the funding of productive business activities.