Las corporaciones autónomas regionales del Caribe colombiano: un análisis de sus finanzas y gobierno corporativo

Abstract

The Regional Autonomous Corporations (Spanish acronym CAR) and the Sustained Development Corporations (CDS) are the institutions in charge of environmental protection in Colombia. This paper studies the performance of the corporations that have jurisdiction over the Caribbean Region. It examines some of their administrative strengths and weaknesses, and addresses the question of whether their funding reflects the regional imbalances observed in Colombian GNP and in the allocation of the National Budget. This is a relevant topic because increasing environmental problems and budget constraints have led to financial limitations in these institutions. The problem is more acute in the cds and in those corporations with jurisdiction over weak ecosystems and sparsely populated areas. The study finds that 41% of the total budget is concentrated in only three corporations (CAR, CVC and CDMB), located in some of the country’s most prosperous regions. Also, according to the Transparency Index (2007-2008), a measure of the risk of corruption, of the ten Caribbean Region corporations, six score below the national mean and, among these, three have the lowest scores in the country.