Catalysing change: Impacta is redefining Colombian women’s role in entrepreneurship
The women of Colombia’s rural landscapes rarely make headlines. They rise with the sun, nurturing their families and communities while earning a living from the land or their one-person small businesses. For many, entrepreneurship is not an ambition but a necessity — a way to survive.
However, across the country, a transformation is underway — one that’s helping these women turn necessity into opportunity. Impacta, an accelerator run by EAN University in Bogotá, Colombia supports women entrepreneurs in rural areas by helping them build thriving and sustainable businesses.
This article is part of the Climate KIC series on shaping inclusive climate entrepreneurship and supporting women entrepreneurs. Together with Salesforce Foundation, we supported six women-led Entrepreneurship Support Organisations (ESOs) with flexible financial grants, capacity-building programmes and access to a supportive community, to scale and accelerate their impact on the ground.
Moving beyond survival entrepreneurship
The Colombian entrepreneurial ecosystem is vibrant but shaped by structural inequities. Women own a significant share of small businesses, but societal expectations and systemic barriers often constrain these ventures. In particular, women in rural areas face many obstacles: financial institutions still require male guarantors for loans, and the economic burden of caregiving often limits their time and resources to scale their businesses.
For Laura Patricia Cely Gómez, coordinator of Impacta, addressing these inequities is her core focus. “Women in Colombia have always been entrepreneurs,” she explains, “but not always by choice. We’re working to shift entrepreneurship from survival to impact — economically, socially and environmentally.”
Impacta challenges deep-seated cultural biases, urging women to reimagine their community leadership roles urging women to reimagine the opportunities for their territories and their community leadership and change agency.
Leading with purpose
Cely Gómez is no stranger to breaking moulds. A political scientist by training, she has spent her career questioning assumptions about power dynamics. At Impacta, her vision is clear: leadership is not about control but facilitation. She draws inspiration from her work on gender equity. “Women are often told they’re natural caregivers,” she says, “but that framing limits us. We don’t lead because we’re women. We lead because we’ve learned, fought and have our own perspective to share.”
Colombia is a country of contrasts, where lush biodiversity coexists with stark inequality. Impacta operates at the intersection of these realities, striving to create businesses that don’t just survive but thrive in harmony with the planet. This perspective is evident in Impacta’s masterclasses, particularly those on Intersectionality and Resilience in Climate Adaptation. These sessions challenge participants – entrepreneurs and mentors – to see sustainability as an environmental goal and a profoundly human one intertwined with equity and inclusion.
Learning across borders
Climate KIC is offering funding, inclusive climate entrepreneurship training and support, and access to a global community. As part of the project, women leaders from Africa and Latin America engaged in virtual ‘Learning Cafés’ to exchange strategies for tackling their climate entrepreneurship challenges. These discussions highlighted both significant differences and notable similarities, such as the challenges of scaling regenerative agricultural practices, the untapped potential of rural tourism and the urgent need for food security.
In Africa, where climate threats are immediate and severe, Cely Gómez saw parallels with Colombia’s own challenges. “We are all dealing with fragile ecosystems and the need to build resilient communities,” she observes. But what I deeply valued was their focus on building solutions from the ground up. It’s something we’re trying to emulate here, as we exchange strategies that we can adopt, reinforcing the vision of acting locally and thinking globally.
A future worth building
“The climate crisis is the fight of our time,” Cely Gómez says. “Our entrepreneurs are proving that solutions don’t have to come from global corporations or governments. They can come from a woman with a vision and a small farm in Colombia,” she continues. “That said, we’re part of an ecosystem and we need everyone to be involved — the public and private sectors, the small businesses and large corporations, the scientists and the dreamers.”
About this programme
At Climate KIC, we’re committed to driving systemic change in inclusion across the climate innovation sector. Our programme, supported by CATAL1.5°T, Irish Aid, Green Hub and Salesforce Foundation helps partners identify gaps in their understanding of gender inequity and implement concrete actions for organisations to embed a gender lens into their everyday work.
We work with different partners and institutions to support our work on inclusive climate entrepreneurship. Contact us today to see how you can become a partner.