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Violence in Colombia: Building Sustainable Peace and Social Capital

Author: C Moser
Date: 1999
Size: 60 pages (4507 KB)

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Summary

What kind of policy can adequately address Colombia's long history of systemic violence? In Colombia, violence is complex and multifaceted, and permeates the core of Colombian society, economy and culture. As a result, violence is considered to be the key development constraint, eroding the country's capital and associated assets.

A World Bank study of violence in Colombia tries to assess the country's fundamental problem of violence by evaluating its causes and costs, and past and recent interventions to address the problem. Although there have been many interventions to address violence in Colombia, the study concludes that many were piecemeal, uncoordinated, and lacked national direction.

Problems of implementation, due to the lack of funds, the increased number of groups involved in political conflict, the reduced state control of large areas of the country and the intransigence of the guerrilla, have plagued successive governments' interventions to address the problem. The study also highlights underlying obstacles to sustainable peace and social capital: high levels of impunity and corruption; economic, political and social fragmentation; and societal acceptance of violence to resolve conflicts.

Other key findings include:

• Intensity of violence has moved from a marginal conflict to generalised conflict, with 75 percent of the country experiencing some level of armed conflict and over one million people displaced;
• Political violence stems from a historical legacy of violence, unequal access to economic resources,and unequal access to political power;
• Economic and social violence relate to poverty, inequality and rapid growth, as well as the lack of educational and employment opportunities and easy access to alcohol, drugs and firearms;
• Weakness of informal and formal institutions, i.e. the judiciary, has led to an increase in vigilante justice or social cleansing;
• The drug industry has exacerbated the levels of violence;
• International and national NGOs have not been able to keep up the growing need for emergency assistance, nor provided a long term solution to the problem;
• Study calls for a comprehensive national strategy for peace and development.

The depth and scope of the violence call for an integrated interdisciplinary approach that recognises a continuum of violence and addresses simultaneously the reduction of different categories of violence. Such an integrated framework would address the pre- determinants of political, economic and social violence in Colombia. Key building blocks of such a framework may include:

• Prioritising peace and development through the negotiation of the appropriate peace agreements;
• Adopting a coordinated approach to violence reduction.
• Developing a fiscal policy to pay for peace;
• Creating partnerships for sustainable peace and development;
• Promoting participatory debate about local-level causes and solutions to violence.

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Source: Moser, C. 1999, 'Violence in Colombia: Building Sustainable Peace and Social Capital', a World Bank Country Study
Author: Overseas Development Institute (ODI), http://www.odi.org.uk/
Organisation: The World Bank, http://www.worldbank.org