The Congress of the Republic of Colombia is debating the draft for a new law to create RED UNIDOS, a network to overcome extreme poverty and to help fight inequality.

The participants in RED UNIDOS would be public regional institutions such as municipalities and administrative departments, represented by their mayors and governing bodies; private-sector parties and civil-society organisations, as well as households in situations of extreme poverty, beneficiaries of family and community support programmes, households receiving priority housing projects, indigenous communities and households that have been victims of armed conflict.

RED UNIDOS, whose operations would be managed by the Administrative Department for Social Prosperity, has the aim of extending the State’s social services provision, offering support to households in extreme poverty, targeting social public spending, and consolidating a social services management scheme, among others.

Among other issues of particular interest, in this draft law are the synergies that would be created with the private sector through RED UNIDOS, participants from the private sector from different economic sectors could execute part of this programme.

The participation of the financial sector in RED UNIDOS is essential to service the funding needs required to develop the network. Similarly, the programme to combat extreme poverty would make it possible to identify the real needs of those households in this situation and, in turn, for the private sector to make appropriate proposals to match these needs.