Colombia has racked up high economic growth during the past decade and shown resilience during the global financial crisis. The remarkable growth in this period was fed by the oil and mining boom, foreign direct investment in the commodity sector and broad-based investment. This has fostered a process of convergence with OECD economies in terms of gross national income per capita. However, productivity and investment remain low outside the oil and mining sectors, which are suffering from falling commodity prices. Columbia still faces the challenges of boosting productivity growth and diversifying its economy. The barriers to this are numerous and span beyond the areas of research and innovation to include social issues such as informality and social problems. However, the country has also engaged in initiatives to raise the level of educational quality, enhance labour skills, promote investment in R&D and reform a distortive tax system. In this context, the government has included the following STI hot issues in its National Innovation Strategy (2010-14).