1. CONTEXT

Colombia has experienced endemic violence since the 1950's, when an open civil war between the Liberales and Conservadores - referred to as "la Violencia" - broke out, leading to a first episode of massive displacements. The traumatic experience of the "Violencia" has remained very present in collective memory and has had far-reaching consequences until present times. It has greatly contributed to the fragmentation of Colombian society, has generated a profound and generalized mistrust vis-à-vis all institutions, and has strengthened the predominance of de facto legal or illegal forms of power.

A general climate of historical violence (in Colombia, violent deaths account for as much as 25% of all casualties) and the expansion and consolidation of the economy of narco-trafficking are important background elements for the civil war that has steadily worsened during the last decades. But other factors have also played a determinant role as root causes. Colombia is a deeply unequal society, with very contrasted levels of wealth and power. Landownership, in particular, is concentrated in the hands of a wealthy few, while an estimated 8,000,000 people out of a population of 40,000,000 are living in acute poverty.. While Colombia is one of the most urbanized Latin American countries (70% of the population lives in cities), agricultural land is controlled by a small and powerful class of latifundistas.

Unlike the civil war in the 50's, which opposed two well-identified camps, the Liberals and the Conservatives, one of the main characteristics of present civil unrest and generalized violence is that it has blurred the frontiers between the main actors: the guerrillas, the narco-traffickers, the Army and paramilitary groups. The relationships between these groups, are characterised by a temporary and/or more structural convergence of interests (the Army and the paramilitary groups, for example, share in principle a vocation of counter-insurgency) as well as by changing and volatile alliances.

An aggravating factor of the present situation is the structural weakness of the state. The latter has proved unable to extend its influence over the totality of the national territory and to control legal and illegal armed forces. It has failed to reach all social groups and attend their basic needs through public services, as well as to impose common interests and regulate social conflicts otherwise than through repression.

Territorial control by the guerrillas and paramilitary has expanded dramatically in recent years, with their respective areas of influence tending to overlap (paramilitary groups are mostly reactive to the presence of guerrilla forces). Their presence is no longer limited to marginal (geographically and economically) zones, and it has extended to important development poles (mining and agricultural exporting areas) and to a few urban centers. It has even expanded last year, despite the agreement signed between the Government and the FARC, under which a large territory was left under FARC’s control. This agreement failed to yield the appropriate peace dividends, and guerrilla activities resumed, as well as the retaliations from the paramilitary groups. This culminated with the kidnapping of the well-known senator Miss Betancour. The newly elected government seems to be determined to dismantle the guerrilla.

The Colombian conflict is an internal war for the control of national territory, with some areas in "equilibrium" (when one of the forces exercises hegemonic control) and others in dispute. In the latter areas, the strategy of the paramilitary consists in eradicating civilian presence, so as to deprive the guerrillas of potential support. Whereas the guerrillas may have used retaliation against local communities, on some occasions, because of their supposed collaboration with the paramilitary, all reports from human rights groups tend to confirm that the escalation in civilian massacres during 1997 and 1998 was mainly due to the paramilitary.

Until 1995, Colombian IDPs were estimated at 500,000-600,000 people. Since then, their number has soared : recent estimates mention figures of up to 1,500,000 displaced people and there is no reason to believe that the phenomenon will soon come to a halt.

Not all displacements are due to the direct and, often daily, exercise of violence against civilian populations. Many are related to economic factors and in particular to the difficult access to land due to the expanding agro-business, including in the form of narco-latifundios. Internal conflict is strongly regionalized. It mainly affects Urabá, the zone of the Magdalena Medio, the South of the department of César and the eastern Llanos. Whether they move individually or with their community, a majority of the displaced people end up in urban areas, where they become dispersed, and where community links are quickly lost. This makes it particularly difficult to provide assistance to them.

If the violence has not yet turned against international aid agencies, it has dramatically affected their capacity to work at the field level. It is against this background that a Global Study team will carry out an analysis of the participatory and consultative processes in Colombia.

 

2. OBJECTIVES

Latin and Central America are areas well-known for the dynamism of their civil societies. Participatory processes in development programmes are not only necessary in these contexts, they are also strongly, if not vehemently requested by the populations and local groups. How much of this dynamic can survive the confrontation with extreme or daily low-intensity violence ? How aid can maintain its objectives, remain effective and respect this social feature of the Latin and Central American societies ? The objectives of this case study are to appraise the level of participation and the approaches used for that purpose in Colombia in the areas where aid agencies assist or try to assist IDPs, victims of violence and other affected people, with three objectives :

• To identify and describe existing practices;
• To identify important lessons through an analysis of the emergency programmes that were implemented;
• To transform these lessons learned into a "capital of knowledge" which will be capitalised, used for the preparation of the Practitioner Handbook and the Overview book and disseminated at the "system-wide" level.
•  

3.1. Overall approach

The mission will utilise the following tools :

• Distribution of relevant information on ALNAP and the Global Study to possible partners in the field;
• Review of the documents made available by agencies;
• Interviews with agency staff;
• Interview and focus groups with affected populations;
• Feed-back to both affected populations and agencies on the findings for discussions

 

3.3. The team

The team for the mission is composed of 4 persons :

Véronique de Geoffroy (franco-colombian), team leader : Specialised in International Humanitarian Law, V. de Geoffroy has extensive experience with aid agencies and has also been working in Colombia.

Karla Levi (Venezuelian), research assistant: K. Levi has recently been involved in a series of research in the region (Salvador, Venezuela) on social auditing and participatory mechanisms.

Local researchers (will be identified during the exploratory mission mid June)

In view of the role of women and the specific socio-cultural feature of Latin and Central America, Groupe URD was particularly keen to ensure a gender balance within this team.

 

3.4. Implementation timeframe

Exploratory mission :

• Contact ALNAP members in the field;
• Distribute ALNAP and Global Study leaflets;
• Analyse the security situation;
• Prepare a context typology in order to select areas for the field visits;
• Identify possible local consultants;

 

Pre-mission preparation :

• Team seminar for the elaboration of a common approach with the other ALNAP Global Study teams (will take place early July 2002)
• Contact agencies at HQ and field levels. A series of meetings is being organised for the next couple of weeks with the Desks of interested agencies;
• Collect and read relevant documents (started already through the URD’s documentation centre);
• Prepare "ad-hoc" analytical tools;
• Inform in advance both HQ and field teams on the status of the preparation of the mission. These TOR will be circulated widely.

 

During the Field missions :

• Organise a small "introductory workshop"
• Field visits, during which meetings with beneficiaries, agency staff, local authorities and other key informants will take place;
• Organisation of a "feed-back meeting" in Bogota for feed-back and reactions;
• Preparation of a draft summary of the findings which will lay the foundations for the Country Monograph;

 

Post-mission activities :

• Preparation of a draft Country Monograph;
• Wide circulation of the monograph through the Steering Group in order to stimulate reactions;
• Participation to the mini-seminar with the other country teams, in order to start shaping the recommendations that will contribute to the Practitioner Handbook;
• Finalisation of the Country Monograph;
• Preparation of a small "bullet-point" end of mission report to be sent to ALNAP and the Global Study Steering Group.

A tentative schedule for the mission is presented bellow:

	06/02	07/02	08/02	09/02	10/02	11/02	12/02	01/03	02/03	03/03
Preparation	---
Exploratory mission	------
Inter-team workshop		--					-
Mission		--	--------
Visit by the Project Director			--
Feed-back Bogota			-
1st Draft of the Monograph				-
Presentation at ALNAP Biannual						-
Inter-team for the Handbook								-
Preparation of the Handbook								-----	-----	----