Orinoquía Sustainable Integrated Landscape Program

Program Overview

The Orinoquía Sustainable Integrated Landscape Program (OSILP) aims to help farmers and agribusiness in Colombia’s Orinoquía region sustainably manage their land, increase agricultural production, and realize the region’s potential to become a food basket for the country and the world.

Program name	Orinoquía Sustainable Integrated Landscape Program (OSILP)
Jurisdiction	Orinoquía region, Colombia
Size of jurisdiction	25 million hectares
Population in jurisdiction	1.37 million
Drivers of land use change	- Agricultural expansion- maize, soybean, forage grasses, and rice - Expansion of areas for cattle grazing - Palm oil plantations
Accounting area	TBD
Implementing agency	Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development
ISFL Funding	- $20 million in grant financing through the government of Colombia - $8.8 million IFC projects to support sustainability by private sector enterprises in the livestock and dairy sectors, and in the cocoa sector of the Orinoquía region - $7.3 million for the technical study called, “Developing climate-smart agriculture supply value chains: Opportunities, challenges, and emerging lessons.” This will complement technical assistance funds to increase knowledge on the cocoa, livestock, non-timber forest products (NFTP), and palm oil sectors, as well as on water governance, special analysis for value chains expansion, and digital technologies. - Up to $40 million in results-based payments for verified emission reductions.
Co-financing	$5.93 million GEF financing

The OSILP provides technical assistance to address the drivers of land-use change in Orinoquía and to catalyze sustainable development across the region. This is done by promoting better land-use planning, the integration of sustainable land-use policies, the enforcement of pertinent laws and regulations, and capacity building. The OSILP is also supporting the preparation of an Emission Reductions program to access results-based finance for up to $40 million of verified emission reductions.

The OSILP had four components:

Supporting capacity building for the implementation of integrated land-use planning and improved governance for deforestation control;
Supporting sustainable land-use management through generating information, capacities, and incentives to reduce AFOLU GHG emissions from unsustainable land use and land-use changes in the agriculture, forestry, and other land uses (AFOLU) sector;
Providing technical assistance for the preparation of the Emission Reductions Program for results-based payments and develop Colombia’s capacity for robust monitoring, reporting, accounting, and verification of AFOLU emissions and removals; and
Financing project coordination, management, monitoring, and evaluation activities.

Recent Progress - December 2025:

OSILP activities closed in October 2024, with all their grant-funded activities finalized and delivered successfully. Among them were activities that strengthened public policies and regulations to reduce deforestation and low carbon sectoral planning, analytics and technical assistance to promote carbon-neutral agricultural practices, and the establishment and strengthening of multistakeholder platforms that integrated public-private and community actors such us the agroclimatic, sustainable livestock, forestry, and cocoa roundtables.
Colombia has developed its Emission Reductions Program Document (ERPD), which has been validated by a third-party body, and an advanced draft of its Benefit Sharing Plan (BSP). Both documents are approved by ISFL Contributors and the World Bank.
Private sector engagement work made great strides. Critical work pieces related to the development of improved sustainable business approaches for key value chains—including rice, cocoa, NTFP, palm oil, livestock, and cashew, along with commercial forestry and agroforestry—were successfully delivered during the past years. These outputs will continue to be promoted for adoption during the implementation of the Emission Reductions Program.

Country Context

Drivers of land use and change

Land-use change from agricultural cultivation is the main driver of deforestation and ecosystem degradation in the Orinoquía region and has largely occurred over the past three decades.
The main causes of land-use change in the Orinoquía region are the expansion of areas for cattle grazing, the lack of land-use planning and incentives for sustainable practices, and illicit activities, including the clearing of forests for the planting of coca.
The plantation area of palm oil has increased the most compared with other plantations and agricultural commodities (total area of 360,000 hectares as of 2010 compared to 18,000 hectares in the 1980s).
Other land-use changes related to forest plantations and agricultural commodities (such as maize, soybean, forage grasses, and rice) have also taken place.
Much of the Orinoquía region constitutes undeveloped “frontier” territory, due in part to land tenure insecurity and lack of adequate infrastructure.

Key commodities and sectors

Agroforestry and commercial forestry systems, cattle, cashew, cocoa, dairy production, and palm oil.

Policy interactions and green growth strategies

The recently launched national policy on deforestation control and forest management (National Council on Economic and Social Policy 4021 in 2020) set the guidelines for the implementation of cross-sectoral activities to boost the forest economy and sustainable use of the country’s natural capital and to bring the deforestation rate to zero by 2030. The project supports its implementation at the regional level.
The project also contributes to the updating and implementation of the Regional Climate Change Plan (PRICCO) for the Orinoquia region in Arauca, Casanare, Meta, and Vichada.

NDC commitments

The government of Colombia has committed to reducing GHG emissions by 51 percent against the business-as-usual level by 2030. To fulfill its NDC, the government has formulated a climate change policy and set an institutional framework to address adaptation and mitigation through the National Climate Change System (SISCLIMA).