In a ceremonial act, the mayor, Claudia López, and the ambassador of Finland in Colombia, Antti Kaski, signed a Letter of Intent between the Capital District and the Embassy of Finland to formalize ties of collaboration that enable knowledge exchange and the promotion of values such as freedom of expression, equality, innovation, and sustainability.
This formalization seeks to deepen technical cooperation processes in areas such as sustainability, education, culture, peace, reconciliation, gender equality, and citizen culture.
During the meeting, the mayor, Claudia López, emphasized the calling of innovation that characterizes Finland and the importance of creating new ties for knowledge exchange processes. "Bogotá is at the forefront of global challenges in the region and we want to learn from the best. That includes Finland and, above all, Helsinki – an model city in sustainability, climate change responses, economic development, and educational quality, from which we can learn to be better," she said.
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For his part, Ambassador Kaski highlighted the focus of the Letter of Intent, which, he stressed, "is closely related to Finland's values, above all, respect for the environment and education, in which Finland is a world leader."
In this regard, Bogotá’s leader took the opportunity to recognize the Finland’s cooperation: "We greatly appreciate your technical support and knowledge sharing. This has allowed us to move forward and I hope in this year to further develop the area of education."
Ambassador Kaski expressed his country's determination to intensify cooperation to strengthen education in Bogota.
"We can work together on digitizing teaching. Finland has a lot to offer both in this area and in sustainability projects," he added.
Finland is a global benchmark when it comes to climate change responses and sustainability. For this reason, in recent years there have been multiple spaces for knowledge exchange with Bogotá. The main topics discussed were the circular economy, waste management, air quality, and educational inclusion.
The Mayor stressed that, on account of this commitment and thanks to the support of Finland, Bogotá will strengthen its mobility agenda with the electrification of the public transport fleet, the action path outlined by the Land Use Plan (POT, as per the acronym in Spanish), which has an eco-urban approach; and its Climate Action Plan.
"Another issue that draws our attention is innovation. We know that 60% of Colombia's startups are in Bogotá and we are very interested in this field," said the Finnish ambassador to Colombia.
At the end of the meeting, Ambassador Kaski highlighted the common goals shared by the Nordic country and the Colombian capital as a fundamental element in strengthening cooperation ties: "Finland plans to reach carbon neutrality by 2035 and Bogota plans to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. This is a joint effort in which we all have a lot to do."
The signing of the letter of intent seeks to strengthen the relationship with Finland – mainly with Helsinki – which will mainly impact the education, environment, habitat, women’s, and victims’ sectors.
