Colombia

How ActionAid and partners work in Colombia

Poverty in Colombia has halved over the last 10 years, but it remains one of the countries with the highest income inequality in Latin America.1

31% of the population live below the poverty line - around 16 million people’.2

There are marked differences between outcomes in rural and urban locations: extreme poverty is over three times higher in rural areas, and moderate poverty 55% higher.

In 2025, over 13 million people faced insufficient access to food, driven by conflict, displacement, and recurring floods and droughts.

Colombia ranks among the top four countries globally for internally displaced persons, with over 6.9 million people displaced by conflict.

Women’s rights in Colombia

In Colombia women are more likely to be unemployed, or employed in low-quality, low-paid jobs for a number of reasons, including the impact of unpaid work like caregiving and housekeeping, which often falls to women.3

Women carry out 7.23 hours of unpaid work per day on average, compared to 3.10 hours per day for men.4

Colombia also continues to face one of the world's largest internal displacement crises, with an estimated seven million internally displaced persons (around 14 per cent of the population) in the country recorded in 2023. Women and girls are particularly vulnerable to conflict-related sexual violence and other forms of violence.5

Many women in Colombia also experience violence in everyday life. According to the Colombian Institute of Forensic Medicine, over 23,000 cases of sexual violence were reported in 2017, 85% of them against women.6