José Antonio Ocampo set to be the next Minister of Finance of the Republic of Colombia

IDEAs is delighted that Prof Jose Antonio Ocampo has been appointed Finance Minister of the Republic of Colombia. His rich policy experience and important work in development finance and tax justice will be important in framing feasible alternatives for economic strategies in Colombia and across the developing world.

Professor Ocampo has been a contributor to IDEAs for over two decades. He has contributed to several books, including International Finance and Development (as co-editor with Jan Kregel and Stephany Griffith-Jones, 2007) , Growth Divergences – Explaining Differences in Economic Performance (as co-editor with Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Rob Vos, 2007), and When Governments Fail: A Pandemic and its Aftermath (as contributing author, 2022). His lecture on “International Financial Cooperation to Address the Latin American Economic Crisis” can be found here.

This is the second time that Professor Ocampo will hold the position of Finance Minister, the first time being between 1996-98. He was also Minister of Agriculture between 1993-94. He has held several important positions at the international level. He was executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) between 1998 and 2003; He has been Deputy Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) and chaired the Executive Committee of Economic and Social Affairs of UN-DESA.