Christian Aid Colombia works with local partners who are among the most important organisations in the social movement – they have a permanent presence in key regions and strong links with local communities.
Following the signing of a peace agreement in 2016 between the Colombian Government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), we are increasingly moving our focus from tackling violence to building peace.
We have been tackling violence through our work on resilience, protection and the fight against impunity for years while attempting to build peace in the midst of the armed conflict. Our partners are well positioned to continue to engage closely with the peace process.
We will continue to speak out with our partners to support civil society peace-building initiatives, to establish dialogue with authorities and to change the structures that perpetuate violence, inequality and human suffering.
Our aims
Our Christian Aid Colombia programme aims to:
- Build communities' resilience by helping them claim their rights, particularly their right to land and territory.
- Help to hold the state to account, make it more responsive to civil society and actively protect of human rights defenders, including local leaders.
In Colombia we work on...
Fiscal justice
Inequality is one of the root causes of the internal armed conflict, which needs to be addressed through fiscal justice – this is about more than tax or budget systems, it is about power, politics and helping people to fight inequality. We want to ensure public money is directed to the poorest and most vulnerable groups, and there is a progressive tax system where the rich pay more and the poor less.
The war brought us together and forced us to organise. We came together to make a list of demands, but the main thing is unity. Without unity, you are weak. Together we are strong. We came together to organise and protect our rights.
Key achievements
Building Peace
Our partners' involvement during the peace talks was critical, and their presence helped to facilitate the participation of conflict-affected communities and victims, giving them a voice in the negotiations.
For example, before the publication of the final text of the peace accords, our partner Compaz, was called to work on the ethnic perspectives in the agreements to ensure the interests of indigenous and black communities are protected, especially around access to and control over land and ensuring autonomous governance structures were safeguarded and reaffirmed in the peace agreement.
Likewise, our partners also contributed significantly to the strong gender justice provisions in the peace agreement.
Partners are now deeply engaged with the implementation of the Peace Agreements, in particular around ensuring the rights of victims to truth, justice, reparation and guarantee of none-repetition.
Bringing perpetrators of crimes to justice
Our partners have brought several high level cases to the courts. As a result of their work, 16 businessmen have been sentenced to jail for using paramilitary groups to illegally grab the land belonging to the communities. These communities were displaced in 1997 with the excuse of the need to fight the insurgents.
Our programmes and donors
Christian Aid Colombia is working on projects funded by institutional donors including the EU and Irish Aid and other key donors such as the Church of Sweden, as well as trusts and foundations including the Latin American Children's Trust. It also receives funding through our supporters in the UK and Ireland.
Irish Aid
Irish Aid has traditionally been, and continues to be, a major donor for Christian Aid’s Colombia programme. Irish Aid supports our work on gender justice, the protection of human rights defenders, tax justice and helps communities to gain or maintain control of their land, or claim it back, in the face of threats from the agro and extractive industries and ongoing armed conflict.
