Gender and the Role of Women in Colombia's Peace Process

Gender and the Role of Women in Colombia's Peace Process

Thursday, November 3, 2016

By: Virginia M. Bouvier

The promises and visions articulated in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and subsequent UN resolutions and position papers that recognize the connection between gender equity and women’s participation in all aspects of peace processes and peacebuilding on the one hand, and international peace and security on the other, have not been fulfilled. Nonetheless, these resolutions have opened the way for advocacy that has had some successes in specific contexts. Colombia offers one su...

Type: Special Report

GenderMediation, Negotiation & DialoguePeace Processes

Q&A: Colombians Narrowly Reject Peace Deal

Q&A: Colombians Narrowly Reject Peace Deal

Monday, October 3, 2016

By: USIP Staff;  Virginia M. Bouvier

Colombian voters yesterday defied projections by pollsters and rejected a peace accord that their government had negotiated during four years of talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP). The agreement was intended to end more than a half century of violent conflict that has left well over 220,000 dead and close to 8 million victims, including more than 6 million people forcibly displaced. USIP’s Senior Advisor for Peace Processes Virginia M. Bouvier explains why voters ...

Type: Analysis

Mediation, Negotiation & DialoguePeace ProcessesDemocracy & Governance

Colombia’s Peace Accord on the Missing (Spanish)

Colombia’s Peace Accord on the Missing (Spanish)

Friday, September 23, 2016

By: Lisa Haugaard;  Virginia M. Bouvier

Las desapariciones forzadas son un legado de medio siglo de conflicto armado interno en Colombia.  Afectan a sectores pobres en el campo y en los centros urbanos, trabajadores, campesinos y campesinas, periodistas, defensores y defensoras de los derechos humanos, políticos de la oposición y lideres y lideresas afro-colombianos e indígenas.  Además, miembros de las fuerzas públicas y de la guerrilla han desaparecido en el contexto del conflicto armado colombiano.  Este informe analiza un acuer...

Type: Peace Brief

Mediation, Negotiation & DialoguePeace Processes

Burns, Flournoy, Lindborg Press Urgency of Fragile States

Burns, Flournoy, Lindborg Press Urgency of Fragile States

Monday, September 12, 2016

By: Viola Gienger

Three former high-ranking officials in the State Department, the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) urged the next presidential administration to commit more attention and resources to preventing the kinds of violent conflicts that are roiling the Middle East and other regions today and spilling over into neighboring countries, Europe and the United States. Former Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy and USAID Assist...

Type: Analysis

Fragility & ResilienceViolent ExtremismGlobal Policy

Q&A: Colombia Peace Deal Announced — What’s Next?

Q&A: Colombia Peace Deal Announced — What’s Next?

Thursday, August 25, 2016

By: Fred Strasser ;  Virginia M. Bouvier

After 52 years of armed conflict, the Colombian government and the country’s oldest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), announced a final agreement last night aimed at ending one of the world’s longest-lasting insurgencies. The U.S. Institute of Peace’s Virginia M. “Ginny” Bouvier, who has studied the peace process from the outset and advised Colombian government officials, civil society and others promoting a political solution to the conflict, comments on the ...

Type: Analysis

Mediation, Negotiation & DialoguePeace Processes

Colombia’s Peace Accord on the Missing

Colombia’s Peace Accord on the Missing

Monday, July 25, 2016

By: Lisa Haugaard;  Virginia M. Bouvier

Forced disappearances are a legacy of Colombia’s half-century of internal armed conflict. They have affected the rural and urban poor, labor and peasant organizers, journalists, human rights defenders, politicians, and Afro-Colombian and indigenous leaders. Likewise, in the context of Colombia’s war, members of the military and guerrillas have also gone missing. This brief examines an agreement on the missing reached in October 2015 between the Colombian government and the Colombian Revolutio...

Type: Peace Brief

Mediation, Negotiation & DialoguePeace Processes

Q&A: Colombia Cease-Fire Accord Marks Historic Turn

Q&A: Colombia Cease-Fire Accord Marks Historic Turn

Friday, June 24, 2016

By: Fred Strasser;  Virginia M. Bouvier

More than a half-century of internal warfare in Colombia is on the brink of a peaceful resolution after four years of talks that suggest how other seemingly intractable conflicts in the world also might be brought to an end. With the announcement yesterday of a ceasefire between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), the adversaries in one of the world’s oldest guerilla insurgencies disclosed new agreements on the two major issues that were holding up a final...

Type: Analysis

Mediation, Negotiation & DialoguePeace Processes

Women and Peace: A Special Role in Violent Conflict

Women and Peace: A Special Role in Violent Conflict

Friday, March 18, 2016

By: Fred Strasser

In Liberia, women, excluded from talks to end the country’s civil war, besieged negotiators until they signed a deal. In Guatemala, where insurgents and the government each had a female delegate in talks, pressure from women put indigenous, gender and labor rights into an accord. In Northern Ireland, women placed the needs of victims and political prisoners on the agenda after winning a role in peace negotiations. Wherever there’s an effort to settle violent conflict, women’s involvement impr...

Conflict Analysis & PreventionViolent ExtremismGenderPeace Processes

Colombian President Says 51-Year War May End Next Month

Colombian President Says 51-Year War May End Next Month

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

By: Fred Strasser

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said his government and the country’s biggest guerrilla group likely will be able to sign a final peace accord close to their self-imposed deadline of March 23, ending more than half a century of internal conflict. Speaking today in Washington at an event co-hosted by the U.S. Institute of Peace, Santos said his government will return to the ongoing negotiations in Havana with new procedures aimed at expediting the final phase.

Type: Analysis

Mediation, Negotiation & DialoguePeace Processes