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Colombia is one of the most inequal countries in Latin America, which at the same time, is the most inequal region of the world. Even though this situation is discouraging it is not new, the difference lays on the importance that this situation has been taken in the political agenda in the nation, awakening multiple expectative between the citizens who has been the eternal losers: the poor. This paper focuses on the challenges that the new government of Gustavo Petro faces in matter of the inequality and poverty that affects over the half of the population in Colombia, at the same time provides a context of the Colombian case in the conjuncture of global and regional socioeconomic changes that incident on the chances of fulfill structural transformations at the social policy. Although this research acknowledges a large spectrum of inequalities existing in the territory (gender, generational, ethnic, racial) it focusses on the income inequality. This analysis takes place based on the data of specialized sources on the subject and the monitoring fluctuations of inequality in Colombia in the last decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objetive of this paper is to determine the enabling conditions for exercising participatory budgets in Bogotá. An analysis of the citizen participation regulatory framework in Colombia is introduced in order to understand the existent conditions for the execution of democratic budgets. After, a diagnostic of the main national and international citizen participation programs is completed using Arnstein’s “participatory ladder”, highlighting the failures in promoting citizen participation and in the development of participatory budgets. Finally, the last chapter presents a proposal to synthetize conditions that will enable the development of citizen budgets as well as the lessons learnt from international and national cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]