Lourdes Díaz-Monsalvo:
This paper addresses the inequities in the equations governing Colombia’s waste management and energy services, comparing the domestic models—which perpetuate intergenerational poverty—with the global framework that keeps developing countries trapped in underdevelopment. The first chapter examines the waste management service, demonstrating how the structure overwhelmingly benefits large corporations while keeping recyclers—key actors in entrepreneurship and environmental care—in poverty. The second chapter focuses on energy regulation, not by contrasting large companies with smaller providers, but by analyzing how the commodification of the service maintains a market with limited competition, excessively high prices, and no real or consistent expansion of basic coverage. The third chapter explores the global structure that renders underdevelopment not a transitional phase toward development but an inescapable condition. It argues that this is mirrored in Colombia’s internal regulation of both energy and waste management services. The paper concludes by illustrating how this entire structure embodies the myth of Sisyphus, where, regardless of the efforts made, the outcome remains the same—there is no real improvement.