"What's going on in the world?" Reimagining peace in Colombia
In this new session of the "What’s going on in the world?" series of conferences, we will reflect on the current state of the peace process in Colombia, highlighting the work carried out by women’s groups for the present and future of the country. We will also present the findings of the project ‘Dialogue After Peace? A Gender Perspective on Track Two Dialogues in Colombia, Kosovo, and the Philippines’, which examines how second-track dialogues led by women contribute to sustaining and reimagining peace in post-conflict contexts.
Sala Jordi Maragall, CIDOB. Elisabets 12, 08001 Barcelona
CIDOB, within the framework of the project ‘Dialogue After Peace? A Gender Perspective on Track Two Dialogues in Colombia, Kosovo, and the Philippines’, co-funded by the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS).
Colombian President Gustavo Petro began his term in 2022 with the promise of implementing the Final Peace Agreement signed in 2016 between the government and the guerrilla group FARC-EP. The new administration proposed a strategy called “Total Peace”, aimed at achieving reconciliation in a country marked by structural violence and armed conflict for over five decades. Six months before the end of his term, the results are disappointing. Studies indicate that only 34% of the commitments made in the 2016 peace agreement have been fulfilled, and in the case of gender-focused measures, only 13% have been implemented.
Meanwhile, armed groups such as the National Liberation Army (ELN), FARC dissidents, criminal organisations and paramilitary groups continue the spiral of violence. In this evolving conflict, thousands of people remain displaced, and political violence continues to disproportionately affect women, sexual minorities, and indigenous and afro-descendant communities. Despite this context, women’s movements in Colombia have been a stronghold in defending the Peace Agreements: beyond monitoring their implementation, they also meet regularly to work towards reconciliation in their communities and to reimagine peace in Colombia.
In this new edition of the "What’s going on in the world?" series of conferences, we will reflect on the current peace process and efforts in Colombia, highlighting the work carried out by women’s groups for the present and future of the country. We will also present the findings of the project ‘Dialogue After Peace? A Gender Perspective on Track Two Dialogues in Colombia, Kosovo, and the Philippines’, co-funded by the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS), in which CINEP and CIDOB contributed to the research on the Colombian case.
What kind of peace do these women’s collectives envision? How do they contribute to peace in their communities and across different territories? What tools do they use to build dialogue and reimagine peace? How do they localise national agreements to territorial diversity? What challenges do they continue to face in their peacebuilding processes? What hopes do they hold for the future of peace? To explore these questions, we will be joined by Gabriela Chacón, Co-founder and Director of the Gender Observatory of Norte de Santander; Helga Flamtermesky, Coordinator of Mujer Diáspora; and Henry Ortega, Researcher at CINEP. The discussion will be moderated by Inés Arco, Researcher at CIDOB. The dialogue will be introduced by Pol Bargués, Senior Researcher and Research Coordinator at CIDOB; Dana Landau, Co-Head and Senior Researcher, swisspeace Mediation Program; and Julia Palmiano, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Security Studies at ETH Zürich.
Participants
Inés Arco Escriche
Pol Bargués
Gabriela Chacón
Helga Flamtermesky
Dana Landau
Henry Ortega
