Jack Aldwinckle

For years “El Bronx”, a violent neighbourhood in Bogotá, was strictly off-limits to Colombia’s security forces. Despite its location—just six blocks from the presidential palace—it was infested with drug trafficking, gun running, prostitution, illegal gambling, and child exploitation. Named after the once-infamous New York borough, Bogotá’s version of the Bronx became a by-word for criminality and vice. Described by the Associated Press as “Colombia’s largest open-air drug market”, narcotics such as marijuana, cocaine and bazuco, a cheap byproduct, were freely available.

San Salvador, El Salvador

BOGOTÁ—Neftali Sanabría Cruz joined the FARC in 1998 out of desperation. “Where I’m from, the state just wasn’t around”, he remembers. “The government, the law, was the guerrilla.”

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA—In the tiny barrio of San Luis, perched precipitously on the hills above Bogotá, a hundred university students are hard at work. Split into 10 groups, they glue, drill and screw things together to make 50 low-cost street lights.

VALLE DE CAUCA, COLOMBIA—Hidden in a corner of the Colombian countryside lies one of Latin America’s best-kept secrets. At the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Valle de Cauca, over three hundred scientists from around the world are working to keep the world fed. The relaxed, university-like atmosphere belies the importance of the organization’s work. CIAT, which is part of a food-research consortium called Cgiar, has international responsibility (pdf) under the UN for safeguarding vital crops such as cassava, rice and beans: staples that hundreds of millions of people in the developing world rely upon for survival.

The United Pentecostal Church in Bogotá is busy on Sundays. As the hall fills up, prams are parked neatly by the entrance. As more families drift in, the band strikes up a song with floor-filling disco beat. “The Lord is great”, sings the bass-playing pastor, as a bank of television screens relays the action on stage to the stragglers at the back. Together, the congregation lift their hands in the air while a boy, who looks no more than about 7 or 8, hammers out the rhythm on an oversized set of congas.

The United Arab Emirates could soon be competing with Andean countries like Peru and Bolivia in the production of quinoa. Researchers from the UAE’s environment ministry are working with local farmers in an effort to kick-start commercial production, which the government hopes will be a sustainable operation by 2021.

BOGOTA—When Berny Silberwasser blew $40,000 of his savings bringing second-hand brewing equipment from Portland, Oregon to Bogotá in 2002, he can hardly have imagined what a canny investment it would prove to be. “At that time it was all I had”, he remembers. “We used it for three years non-stop until we had to find a new set.”