Colombia

USIP Goals in Colombia

The United States Institute of Peace seeks to support a non-violent transformation of the conflict in Colombia. For ten years, in the absence of a national peace process, USIP has been supporting conflict analysis and resolution initiatives that would shape conditions propitious for a political, negotiated solution. Since 2008, much of USIP's Colombia work has focused specifically on generating lessons from past peace processes that might be helpful for future talks.

When on September 4, 2012, President Juan Manuel Santos announced that peace talks would open in October in Oslo and continue in Havana, he gave guidelines about what was to come. His first point was that this time Colombia would learn from the lessons of the past. USIP has worked to shape a context where talking about these lessons would be possible and fruitful. With peace talks now launched in Oslo and continuing in Havana, Cuba, the Institute is supporting both the national negotiations and civil society efforts to ensure that whatever peace is negotiated in the national talks will be sustainable. In particular, the Institute seeks to:

• Support policy-relevant research and analysis of Colombia’s internal armed conflict and initiatives to prevent, manage and transform conflict;
• Support innovative projects and processes that strengthen civil society organizations' capacities to promote an agenda for human rights, peace, democratic governance, and sustainable development;
• Enhance collective efforts to secure truth, justice, reparations, social reconstruction, reconciliation, and processes of historical memory, particularly among groups victimized by the war, discrimination, and social and economic exclusion;
• Encourage the analysis and articulation of a gender perspective in every phase of conflict prevention, management, peacemaking, peace-building, reconciliation, and reintegration.

Work & Analysis

USIP has been spearheading a collaborative research project with the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, the Colombian Jesuit Research Institute (CINEP), and the Latin American Studies Center at Georgetown University and others to analyze past peace processes and their impact on prospects for a future political solution to the conflict in Colombia. On October 15, 2012, the consortium released a new document, “Lessons for Colombia’s Peace Talks in Oslo and Havana,” published in Spanish as “Lecciones para los diálogos en Oslo y La Habana.”

The latest document builds on the work USIP has been doing to generate lessons from Colombia’s extensive peace efforts over the last quarter century. This work has helped open the possibility of revisiting dialogue and a political solution in Colombia. The documents provide frameworks for generating the discussion and ideas that a national peace process will require. The latest document, “Lessons for Colombia’s Peace Talks in Oslo and Havana” assesses the lessons that have been learned and those still to be assimilated as Colombia embarks on this next stretch of the road toward peace.

• Read the document, “Lessons for Colombia’s Peace Talks in Oslo and Havana.”
• Read the document in Spanish as “Lecciones para los diálogos en Oslo y La Habana.”
• Read "10 Years After Caguan: Lessons for Peace in Colombia Today."
• Read the document in Spanish as "A los diez anos de Caguán: Algunas lecciones para acercarse a la paz."
• Learn more about USIP's Colombia work.

Read more about USIP's work on Colombia

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