As a national, nonpartisan, independent Institute, the U.S. Institute of Peace draws on our exceptional convening power to create opportunities for diverse audiences to exchange knowledge, experiences, and ideas necessary for creative solutions to difficult challenges. We serve as an important, neutral platform for bringing together government and nongovernment, diplomacy, security, and development actors, and participants across political views. The Institute’s events help shape public policy and priorities to advance peaceful solutions to conflict and strengthen international security.
USIP and Colombia’s University of Cartagena webcast a live forum March 24 with Colombian youth leaders and students working toward post-war reconciliation. A panel of peacebuilders discussed with them the growing roles for youth leaders in healing violent conflicts in Colombia and globally.
While Colombia’s government and the guerrilla group known as the FARC work on the final details of a comprehensive peace deal, one part of the proposed accord is already in effect: the commitment by both sides to recover and return the remains of tens of thousands of “disappeared” people—those presumed to have been secretly killed in the conflict. USIP and the Latin America Working Group Education Fund held an event on April 22 for an early assessment of how implementation of the agreements on disappearances is proceeding.
Women have played groundbreaking roles in Colombia’s peace process between the government and the country’s largest rebel group, the FARC. With a peace agreement in sight and on the occasion of International Women’s Day, the U.S. Institute of Peace held an event on March 8 that briefed on the status of women in peace processes, with a focus on the Colombia case. The discussion was co-sponsored by USIP’s Colombia Peace Forum and the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum.
Despite widespread optimism that a peace agreement will soon be reached in Havana, the war in Colombia continues, marked by a rise in attacks on human rights defenders. The U.S. Institute of Peace and its co-sponsors held an event to hear four winners of last year’s National Prize for the Defense of Human Rights in Colombia discuss the challenges they and their fellow advocates face in their regions, and the role of human rights defenders in building sustainable peace in Colombia.
On February 3, President Santos discussed Colombia's progress in security and governance over the last 15 years. He also reviewed the state of the negotiations with the FARC, the prospects for a country at peace, and the challenges that lie ahead.
Colombia’s government and the FARC movement achieved their September 23 breakthrough in peace negotiations by setting down basic principles on the rights of victims to truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-repetition. USIP’s Colombia Peace Forum, on September 30, analyzed the role of historical memory in these transitional justice issues.
On the United Nations-declared International Day of Peace, September 21, USIP highlighted an essential process for any country to heal from a violent conflict: reconciliation. USIP convened this reconciliation discussion as part of a daylong celebration of the international day of peace. If you took some action for peace, share it with us at #PeaceDayChallenge. Read the event coverage, Reconciliation as the Road to Durable Peace.
In early July, a group of 26 religious leaders of different faiths called on the negotiators to accelerate peace talks and offered to help lead the country toward reconciliation. On July 15, the U.S. Institute of Peace held a discussion with a group pursuing such work, the Ecumenical Group of Women Peacekeepers (GemPaz).
With Colombian public support waning for the peace talks between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the peace process can be strengthened by finding ways to engage a broader set of civil society stakeholders. One important group excluded so far, the Afro-Colombian population, is working to have its needs and proposals heard at the peace table. How can Afro-Colombians and other excluded groups enhance their participation in the process, and what are the risks if they cannot? The U.S. Institute of Peace held an event on May 26 that answered these questions in the Colombia Peace Forum series.
Amid Colombia’s half-century of armed conflict, with peace talks progressing, the government’s High Commissioner of Peace, Sergio Jaramillo, has called for building “paz territorial,” or “peace from the ground up.” This idea is meant to engage regional institutions, local authorities and diverse social sectors and communities in translating an eventual peace accord into practice. But much is still to be defined. Who will lead and organize the process? How is it to be supported logistically? On March 27, 2015, the U.S. Institute of Peace hosted a session of the Colombia Peace Forum to explore these and other questions with a panel of experts.