At the headquarters of the national directorate of Victims Unit, in Bogotá, a meeting was held between the director of the entity, Ramón Rodríguez and the FAO representative in Colombia, Alan Jorge Bojanic, in which, in addition, of the protocol greetings, they exchanged information about the projects that are underway and others to be developed, jointly, for the benefit of victims of armed conflict.
Currently, the Unit and FAO are working on the proposal to sign a bilateral agreement that includes two lines of action: one is collective reparation, on the implementation of food security measures, productive projects, agricultural, livestock and forestry measures. The other line is the implementation of measures in ethnic collective subjects (indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, blacks, palenqueras and raizales) on issues of food security, productive projects and ancestral practices with ethnic focus.
The Unit is seeking with the Embassy of Sweden the obtaining of additional resources to those contributed by the entity and the FAO for the measures of ethnic collective subjects. The resources for this project will be around 5 million dollars, of which the Department of Ethnic Affairs of the Unit will contribute 700 million pesos.
The director of Victims Unit, Ramón Rodríguez, requested technical support from FAO to measure the minimum subsistence in populations that have been receiving humanitarian aid for many years and in the development of productive projects for those same communities.
Germán Infante, a member of the Unit’s International Cooperation group, asked FAO for support to develop a standard model for the management of migratory flows in border areas, since many Colombians who were victims of conflict, especially from Venezuela, who had left of the country for many years. Some so far are declaring to be included in the Single Victim Registry.
Alan Jorge Bojanic, representative of FAO in Colombia, recalled that they are already working with the Unit on a project on agricultural issues of Collective Repair, for which the Unit has around 3,000 million pesos.
There is already a letter of understanding between the government of Colombia and FAO, which started working. With resources from the United Nations Multi-Donor Fund for the Post-Conflict, and implementation of the FAO and the United Nations Program for the Development (UNDP) was developed the project “Support to the Collective Reparation Program in Colombia for the generation of trust, the construction of territorial peace”.
The project is materialized by providing comprehensive support of 126 measures in 26 subjects of collective reparation, in 12 departments, with an investment of US $ 3,000,000, especially in eight strategic rights such as Education, Social Protection, Culture, Communications, Sports and Recreation, Social Inclusion and Productivity.
To date, nearly 14 implemented measures have been delivered to recover or promote food safety initiatives or productive projects of the subjects.
Another project to be financed by the Multi-Donor Fund is being prepared for a value of US $4,000,000 with a duration of 18 months (until December 31, 2020), where the executing partners would be FAO and UNDP.
The project contemplates the implementation of measures of collective Reparation plans and of the Return and Relocation plans in the areas with Development Plans with Territorial Approach (PDET). The measures are focused on social and community infrastructure (UNDP), food security and the agricultural part (FAO).
