Submitted by Rebecca Noebel on 5 July 2022
Area characterisation: 

Bogotá is the capital of Colombia and with over 7 Million inhabitants the largest city of the country.  It stretches over  1,775 km² and is located in the centre of the country at an altitude of approximately 2,600 metres in the Cordillera Oriental of the Northern Andes Mountains. While the city includes numerous green spaces, such as the Botanical Garden. The Bogotá River crosses the city.

Objective: 

On September 2021, the mayor and the District Planning Secretary presented the proposal for the Territorial Ordering Plan (POT ) 2022-2035. This POT responds and involves the Sustainable Development Goals in land use planning. Based on these areas, the plan incorporates on four pillars, including sustainable mobility, greening, a care system for women and sustainable economic economy.

Potential impacts/benefits: 

- Cultural transformation, such as to eradicate machismo and promote caring and co-responsible masculinities; care for boys and girls, people with disabilities and the elderly.

- Economic reactivation, tourist activities focused on the promotion of gastronomic heritage will be implemented in six (6) district market square environments.

- Natural landscape will be increased by 30%, increasing from 95,000 to 124,000 hectares.

- New public spaces and bicycle lanes.

NbS benefits 
  • Developing climate change adaptation; improving risk management and resilience
  • Flood peak reduction
  • Increase infiltration / Water storage
  • Reduce flood risk
  • Reduce load to sewer system
  • Restoring ecosystems and their functions
  • Greater ecological connectivity across urban regenerated sites
  • Improve connectivity and functionality of green and blue infrastructures
  • Increase Biodiversity
  • Increase quality and quantity of green and blue infrastructures
  • Increased cultural richness and biodiversity
  • Enhancing sustainable urbanisation
  • Changing image of the urban environment
  • Creation of green jobs relating to construction & maintenance of NBS
  • Improve water quality
  • Increase accessibility to green open spaces
  • Increase amount of green open spaces for residents
  • Increase communities’ sense of ownership
  • Increase social interaction
  • Increase stakeholder awareness & knowledge about NBS
  • Increase well-being
  • Provision of health benefits
  • Social inclusion
Transferability of the result: 

Although the concrete implementation is tailored to address the areas of action in Bogotá, the overarching approach, many methodologies as well as derived measures  for nature protection, climate adaptation and civil participation are transferable to other city contexts. For instance, the definition of identifying priority areas, or definitions on usages of ecological structures are well elaborated and can serve as blue print for other comparable plans. For the implementation, it does not require similar environmental or societal settings. The plan was established based on a broad participatory process: via 26 channels, it reached community initiatives, NGOs and universities, as well as different groups of people, such as women, children and people with disabilities, among others. In total, the process generated over 26,000 contributions, of which 17,000 were incorporated within the POT.

Financing: 

City of Bogotá

Contacts: 

Alcaldía de Bogotá

Cra 8 N° 10-65 / Tel: +57 (601) 381-3000
Horario de atención al público:
Lunes a viernes de 7:00 a.m. a 4:30 p.m.
Código postal: 111711

Further information

Website link: https://bogota.gov.co/bog/pot-2022-2035/#pilares

Sustainable Development Goals 
  • 1. No Poverty
  • 3. Good Health and Well-being
  • 5. Gender Equality
  • 6. Clean Water and Sanitation
  • 9. Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
  • 10. Reducing Inequality
  • 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
  • 13. Climate Action
  • 15. Life On Land