The Peace Accords Matrix at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies has released a new special report outlining the current implementation status of the gender approach within the 2016 Colombian Peace Accord. The implementation of the gender approach has been fundamental to guaranteeing the protection and promotion of the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people. However, this process has been fraught with obstacles due to limited institutional understanding, capacity and ownership of implementing the gender approach while integrating territorial and intersectional perspectives. Furthermore, significant structural and social changes are involved in this process, which also makes its implementation challenging.

The Kroc Institute’s fourth special report, “Time is Running Out to Implement the Gender Approach in Colombia’s Peace Accord,” covers implementation of the gender approach from December 2021 through November 2022. The report analyzes implementation in four thematic areas: rural transformation, participation guarantees and final accord implementation mechanisms, security guarantees and reincorporation, and victims’ rights.

During this period, the Kroc Institute found that the implementation of gender commitments in the Colombian Peace Accord continues to lag behind general commitment implementation due to limited institutional ownership of the gender approach, and the fact that institutional programs, plans, actions and mandates inadequately consider women and LGBTQ+ people, particularly in rural areas and with an intersectional perspective.

The Kroc Institute has identified 130 stipulations in the Peace Agreement that are used to monitor the gender approach. Since the last reporting period, there was a mere 2 percent change in non-initiated gender commitments. Completed gender commitments stayed steady at 12 percent for the entire year, and more than 50 percent of gender commitments remain at a minimum level of implementation.

The implementation of the gender approach faces many obstacles. Unlike other areas of the Peace Agreement, implementation of the gender approach is in need of clear leadership for the effort, as well as adequate funding. Although the High-Level Government Body for the Implementation of the Gender-Based Approach was created with this purpose — and charged with coordinating, promoting and monitoring the implementation and mainstreaming of the gender perspective — the group has not held a formal meeting since July 2022. 

The report also outlined how the lack of implementation has hindered communication and implementation between the two transversal approaches of the peace accord. Gender and ethnic concerns must be approached in an intersectional way that considers specific measures for Indigenous and Afro-descendent women. A more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between gender and ethnic-racial identity — and their combined effect on the discrimination and violence faced by Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, Black, Raizal, Palenqueras and Roma women — needs to be addressed in both ethnic and gender implementation to be effective.

This lack of progress in gender commitments, in the past reporting period and in the six years since the signing of the accord, reduces the likelihood of successful gender implementation within the 15-year timeline in the framework plan for implementation. Based on the projection of this data, the accord’s gender approach will not reach full, or even intermediate, implementation without reinvigorated planning and concerted mainstreaming efforts.

A translated version of the special report will be made available in English in May. In addition, the Kroc Institute has provided a policy brief, in English, highlighting key points of the special report. 

The Kroc Institute will release its seventh comprehensive report on overall peace accord implementation in Colombia in June. 

The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies is part of the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and is one of the leading peace research and study centers in the world. One of its main programs is the Peace Accords Matrix, which created the most comprehensive database regarding the implementation of 34 peace agreements around the world.

By mandate of the government of Colombia and the former FARC-EP, signatory parties of the Final Agreement to End the Armed Conflict and Build a Stable and Lasting Peace, the Kroc Institute is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the agreement. The Kroc Institute has released six prior reports on the status of overall implementation, as well as three reports on implementation of gender provisions and two reports on implementation of ethnic provisions.

You can review all reports here: https://peaceaccords.nd.edu/barometer/colombia-reports.

The main partners of the Kroc Institute in Colombia are the National Secretariat of Pastoral Social Cáritas Colombiana and the National Network of Regional Peace and Development Programs.

Access the policy brief in English here.

Access the full report in Spanish here.
 

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, assistant director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu

Originally published by Jena O'Brien at kroc.nd.edu on April 26