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Paper short abstract

This paper analyses how Colombia’s national cooperation agency has redefined a dual-track strategy as both aid recipient and provider, illustrating emerging forms of state-led agency from the Global South in a reconfigured multipolar development landscape.

Paper long abstract

In a reconfiguring international development landscape marked by multipolarity and shifting power relations, actors from the Global South are assuming more complex roles in global development. This paper examines how the Presidential Agency for International Cooperation of Colombia (APC Colombia) has redefined its cooperation strategy in line with Colombia’s position as a dual-transition country—simultaneously a recipient of international cooperation and an emerging provider of development knowledge and technical capacities.

Focusing on institutional agency rather than abstract national agency, the paper analyses how APC Colombia has operationalised a dual-track approach combining traditional aid coordination with South–South and triangular cooperation initiatives. Drawing on policy analysis and selected cooperation experiences, including peacebuilding and institutional strengthening, the paper explores how this strategy reflects broader shifts in Global South engagement with development governance.

The analysis situates Colombia within debates on the “new South” by examining how state-led actors from middle-income countries adapt and reconfigure cooperation practices historically associated with Northern donors, while navigating fiscal, coordination, and prioritisation constraints. The paper contributes to discussions on power and agency in global development by offering an empirically grounded case of how a Global South cooperation agency reimagines development practice beyond traditional North–South binaries.