Postconflict in Colombia (20): 'Paz territorial', decentralisation and citizen participation

On 24 August, after nearly
four years of negotiations, delegates of the government of Colombia and the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) publicly presented the text of
the Final
Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable
and Durable Peace, 297 pages in length, that brings to
a close the armed confrontation between the government and the guerrillas, the
oldest and largest in both the country and the Western hemisphere. We knew from
previously published drafts that the agreement not only includes directions and
plans, with more or less detail, for disarmament, demobilisation and
reintegration of former combatants, but also proposes a number of substantive
guidelines (policies, plans and proposals for deep institutional changes) for
the transformation of a context that has favoured the armed conflict. That
context is defined as follows:

The significant development gap
between the countryside and the cities: according to the report of the Mission
for the Transformation of the Rural Areas, people living in rural communities
are 2.5 times poorer than those living in urban areas.
The noxious link between politics and
weapons: according to the Historical Commission of the Conflict and its
Victims, more than 1.700 political leaders have been killed in the armed
conflict.
The many faces of the illicit drugs
phenomenon: according to figures from the national government, about 64.500
families earn their living growing coca in Colombia, as a result of the
critical situation of poverty and weak governance in the rural areas.
The need to offer real reparations to
the victims of the conflict: the Victims’ Register reported a total of 8.190.451
victims in the country.

As part of an elected strategy
to address these issues, the national government has been developing the
concept of paz territorial (peace in
the territories). With this, the intended message is that the reforms and
policies proposed in the peace agreement must come alongside a renewed
decentralisation effort and a general call for the direct participation of
citizens in the governance of the public sphere. However, the issues at the
heart of the paz territorial,
decentralisation and citizen participation, are long-standing, and pose
substantial challenges.

To achieve a true
transformation of the territories and ensure that citizens in rural areas most
affected by the conflict have a decent life, as stated in Article 366 of the Colombian
Constitution of 1991[1], one
of the major changes needed for the implementation of the Final Agreement which
is specifically identified in its first point – on "Comprehensive Rural
Reform" -, will necessarily revolve around territorial management and
organisation.

Despite some achievements,
mainly related to the provision of basic public services, Colombia's model of
decentralisation is now exhausted and clearly inadequate for the peacebuilding phase.

In recent decades, successive
governments created a number of institutional mechanisms[2]
to regulate the operation and organisation of the state in all the territories
of Colombia. Even though they were endorsed by the Congress of the Republic, which
includes regional representation, the outcome of these formulae has not
contributed to a clear and effective distribution of powers and
responsibilities, nor to ensuring the autonomy of municipalities and departments
in managing their interests. On the contrary, given the lack of resources,
local leaders have been forced to find their way through wasteful and confusing
bureaucracy and navigate these complex schemes to try to access public funds which
often turn out to be nonexistent.

This complex organisational
structure and territorial funding should not only be updated and harmonised,
but restructured according to the different conditions and realities of local
authorities, taking into account not only the territorial extension and the population
of each municipality, but its density, degree of rurality, institutional
weaknesses and the impact resulting from the internal armed conflict. In this
regard, the current National Development Plan (PND), despite its underlying
centralist outlook, outlines an initial intention to address these issues
through the creation of a National Programme for Delegation of Competences[3].

Despite the fact that the established
planning norms highlight the need to integrate the active participation of
local authorities in the process of drafting the National Plan, the recurrent
tendency at the national level is to prioritise the sectoral agenda over the needs
arising from the territories[4].
For example, although the current PND includes a chapter entitled
"regional strategy", the said strategy is not a commitment to
decentralisation or to some formula to rescue the autonomy of local
authorities, but instead a series of regional programmes and projects defined
and coordinated from Bogotá.

In the post-conflict period,
mayors and governors cannot remain as bystanders or mere spectators of public
projects in their regions, due to the simple fact that they do not have enough
resources to develop certain competencies and functions. These competencies and
functions were irresponsibly assigned by Congress without the corresponding
resources to make them happen – that is, without complying with Article 356 of
the Constitution which states that "Competencies cannot be decentralised
without prior allocation of sufficient fiscal resources to meet them."

In another vein, the strategy
of bringing the state in a de-concentrated manner to the territory through
agencies, programmes and special administrative units has been widely developed
in the past and has yielded several lessons that should be taken into account
for the approaching scenario: the peace agreement outlines a number of plans,
processes and coordination spaces that must be the result of a joint effort
between communities and public authorities, including municipal and
departmental authorities. As the High Commissioner for Peace clearly stated in
2014, "the centralist model, by which officials land like Martians on
communities to ‘bring them the state’ is no more[5]”.

The implementation of the agreement
requires a new relationship and clear institutional arrangements between the
federal government, the municipalities and the departments by which the
regional authorities will be strengthened institutionally, their local
development plans legitimized, and channels of communication between local
government and the community made clearly known.

The time has come to rethink
the functioning of the state and to rebuild the relationship between the state
and the citizens, which means understanding the state as not only the Nation or
the Central State, but instead as constituted and represented by local and
regional authorities in the territories.

Without neglecting the fact that
the concept of the state bears relevance to all Colombians, from the perspective
of citizen participation it is expected that a decentralising effort should
lead to better interaction between local authorities and the people in each
territory. Several studies undertaken by the Ideas para la Paz Foundation, have
led us to identify a vibrant network of leaders and grassroots organisations in
the regions deeply affected by the armed conflict. This social and community
movement includes such robust organisations as the Women's Peaceful Route (1996),
the Programmes for Development and Peace
(1995), or the Union of Agricultural Workers in Sumapaz (1960). These
organisations, along with many others, have boosted support for resistance to
the armed conflict and have developed a series of ideas, plans and projects for
the communities to stay in their territories.

Undoubtedly, these mentioned
leaders and organisations do not represent all the interests and positions in
the regions, their proposals may also be technically or financially imprecise
but, in any case, they are heartfelt responses and sincere reflections from
those who have directly experienced the ravages of armed violence.

It is essential, therefore,
that under the paz territorial (territorial
peace) heading, the objective of improving dialogue between these initiatives
and municipal and departmental authorities be pursued. This dialogue is the
essence of efficient and high-quality civil participation – and of a properly
functioning state. It is not a matter of handing over a blank cheque to the
social organisations' discourse and proposals but, rather, to seek arrangements
to: first, help local authorities to recognise the paths and processes of their
communities; second, to count on the authorities’ and the communities’ willingness
to learn from their interactions in participatory entities; and, third, to
increase the local institutions’ capacities so that they can respond to the
needs expressed locally.

Continuing with the current participation
framework does not favour the achievement any of these three issues. On the one
hand, local participatory entities as they stand today are not the right spaces
for local authorities and communities to achieve dialogue and define paths to
respond to the needs of the territories. In addition, the departmental level is
usually unable to develop effective participatory processes at the local level.
Finally, when the communities, disillusioned with the regional governments'
incapacities and invisibility, seek answers to their problems from the national
government, they find that their specific contexts are not appreciated there nor
is there any willingness to engage in joint learning processes.

Looking at this in more
detail: in Colombia there are multiple
participatory entities (usually committees), who do not recognise regional
differences. These bodies, established by national laws, are viewed by local
officials as extra work to be done, and by communities as insubstantial bodies
where, at most, pre-decided matters are formalised. National authorities have
not bothered, excepting very few exceptions, to evaluate the functioning of the
bodies mentioned, to promote a simplification of the spaces for participation[6],
or to help these bodies to tune to the particularities of the territories.
Given the innocuousness of these participatory entities, communities tend to
seek solutions to local problems from the national government, either by accessing
national bodies or through participatory mechanisms outside the institutional
channels, such as marches and blockades. We recently saw the creation of several
"roundtables" where national government representatives sit down with
local leaders and organisations.

While these approaches are
well-intended, they are sporadic and often spurred by ignorance and distrust,
making it extremely complex for national authorities to come to recognise the
context and processes of each community, or that their interaction can provide significant
lessons to be learnt.

A new framework is required,
we insist, in which regional authorities can develop their autonomy and encourage
and commit to a better dialogue with the local communities, through recognition
of their specific contexts, learning together and coming up with solutions to
local problems, and, of course, with the technical and financial support from
the central level oriented towards cooperation, not supplanting or creating new
burdens for regional governments.

The end of the armed conflict
between the government and the FARC-EP is, then, the opportunity to re-route
the complementary agendas of decentralisation and citizen participation so as
to contribute to building a stable and lasting peace. And, in so doing, to
achieve the purpose of the 1991 Constitution to bring the state closer to
citizens, to encourage citizen participation in local decision-making, to make
governance more transparent, and to improve the quality and efficiency in the
provision of services.

[1] Article
366. General welfare and improving quality of life of the population are social
purposes of the State. Solving the unmet needs of health, education, sanitation
and potable water will be a fundamental objective of its activity. For this
purpose, public social spending will have priority over any other allocation in
the plans and budgets of the Nation and the territorial entities.

[2] General
Participation System -SGP (transfers from the national level to local
authorities), General Royalties System, national government's investment budget
for the regions ,among others.

[3] General
Participation System -SGP (transfers from the national level to local
authorities), General Royalties System, national government's investment budget
for the regions ,among others.

[4] A
situation faced every day by mayors and governors, filling out report forms,
tracking and monitoring for each of the ministries, the result of recipes made
from the centre, ignoring the importance and necessity of a real prior process
to generate capacities in the area.

[5] http://equipopazgobierno.presidencia.gov.co/prensa/declaraciones/Paginas/paz-territorial-sergio-jaramillo-alto-comisionado-paz-proceso-paz.aspx

[6] Law 1757 presents a very interesting opportunity
in this respect