Agreement No.

28

AGREEMENT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROCESS OF PARTICIPATION OF THE SOCIETY IN PEACEBUILDING

Point 1 of the Mexico Agreement

Peace in Colombia requires all voices, all peoples, communities, individuals, processes and forms of nation-building.

This is already a consensus for the Dialogues Table and therefore, in the search for the greatest possible participation for the necessary transformations, we are carrying out an unprecedented historic process.

While war is being projected around the world, in Colombia we are advancing in the participation of society in the building of Peace, through encounters, dialogues and exchanges between diverse sectors.

To begin this journey of searching for voices, actions, knowledge and methods, the National Participation Committee (CNP) was formed, a space that from a collective logic designed and promoted the holding of 78 national and regional pre-meetings and meetings, with the participation of 8,565 representatives of social organisations from 30 sectors, as well as 3,217 organisations in all regions of the country, 19 prisons and the diaspora in 14 countries in Latin America, North America and Europe.

The result of this process is a Participation Design, a National Plan and a set of recommendations.

The whole set of documents will be available for society to consult and have been the basis for the elaboration of this Agreement.

The Dialogues Table appreciates and recognises the immense work and effort made by the CNP, the participating organisations, the Secretariat and the technical teams that collected and systematised the proposals.

Likewise, the Roundtable is especially grateful for the accompaniment and support of the international community, the Episcopal Conference and the United Nations Verification Mission.

The Dialogue Table is aware that additional spaces are needed to listen to other voices from organised and unorganised society.

Out of this first phase, and from the multiple voices that participated in it, the following axes of dialogue were developed:

political regime, for the construction of a society in which all options and opinions have a place;

economic model, which overcomes inequalities;

environmental policy, which discusses the forms of relationship with nature, territories and populations;

education and culture, as a project of a society that is nourished and strengthened by its social diversities.

This Agreement is a progress and an important step towards a social and political alliance, in the direction of a Great National Agreement, understood as a path and route to remove violence from politics in Colombia and to address the multiple problems that the country is experiencing in its journey towards peace.

The parties commit ourselves not to leave the Dialogues Table;

likewise, by signing this new agreement, we ratify our commitment to bilateral and unrestricted compliance with all the Agreements, including the security and free intervention of all persons, communities and collectivities.

We reiterate that the purpose of the democratising transformations is to overcome the armed conflict, resolving its political, economic and social causes.

From the Dialogue Table for Peace, we—the CNP, together with thousands of organizations and entities who have jointly developed this framework, open to society’s contributions—invite the Colombian people to engage in democratic participation for peace with transformations.

1. Objective of the participation process

To build an agenda of transformations for peace, driven by a social and political alliance that will lead to a Great National Agreement to overcome the political, social, economic and armed conflict.

Through a participatory process that includes the whole of Colombian society, especially men and women who have been historically excluded in the rural and urban world, incorporating differential, population, ethnic, woman's and gender, intergenerational, rights-based and territorial approaches.

This process is articulated and implemented through policies, plans, programmes and projects at the national, departmental and municipal levels, as well as in the territories with their own governments and in joint efforts with state institutions and the private sector.

2. Nature and principles of participation

Nature

The participation in the construction of transformations for peace is a continuous and expansive process through which, recognising differences and interests, society reflects, deliberates and reaches agreements on the structural causes of its conflicts;

to formulate solutions and strategies in which diverse actors have an active role to play in the transition towards a peaceful country.

This process of dialogues for peace recognises the Colombian society as the historical and political subject of the transformations, and seeks to exalt and make effective its right to participate and to build dignified living conditions for the nation.

It also calls to assume the historical commitment of communities, movements, ethnic peoples, organisations, unions and institutions, populations, their own governments and territories in the construction of a democratic country in peace, which guarantees an effective way to eliminate violence from politics and close the long cycle of war.

Through a National Movement for Peace and Transformations, the participation of society as a whole seeks to guarantee the fulfilment of the agreements reached between the parties and the realisation of the transformations.

Principles

Participation is:

Active: Society actively promotes the peacebuilding process with dynamism and freedom in each daily scenario. The participation process is public and informed.

Propositive: The process of participation allows society to formulate solutions and alternatives to structural conflicts, in which each social actor has a role and a part to play, strengthening autonomy, identities and values.

Inclusive: Participation in this peace process is broad and plural.

It calls on all Colombian society as a whole and in all its diversity, especially women and men who have been historically excluded, organised and unorganised society, and sectors sceptical of the political solution.

Deliberative: The participation process is a broad, free, open and respectful dialogue that provides conditions and guarantees, so that people and sectors that historically have had different opinions can find alternatives and reach agreements for transformations.

Binding: The society in the peacebuilding process, as the source of the proposals, as well as the State and the ELN, acquire the commitment to promote and achieve the transformations.

The agreements adopted by the Roundtable concerning the transformations are of mandatory implementation for the parties and must become State policies, public policies, programs, and projects that are integrated with the National Development Plan, as well as with existing and future departmental and municipal development plans;

life plans and other planning and execution instruments in the territories, with social oversight to guarantee their implementation.

Effective: Participation succeeds in consolidating a Comprehensive Transformation Plan that contributes to a Grand National Agreement.

Autonomous: The parties respect the initiatives and dynamics of the organisations, peoples and sectors in the participation process, and promote their strengthening within the framework of peace building, transformations and a Great National Agreement.

3. Axes of transformation

The CNP, its commissions, the pre-meetings and sectoral and territorial meetings, contributed the following thematic lines to develop in the process of participation contemplated in points 2 and 3 of the agenda of the Mexico Agreement.

We invite Colombian society to this national dialogue.

According to what the women and men involved in this process have stated, the transformations are focused on the following axes:

3.1. Political Regime: It includes dialogue on the transformation of those doctrines, practices, structures and institutions of the political organisation of the State that violate the rights and well-being of Colombian society, the foundations of democracy, and seeks to strengthen those that stimulate and guarantee them.

Likewise, to develop democracy in all its forms, including those of the political organisation of society and the state, in order to guarantee justice, dignity and well-being for men and women Colombians as a fundamental element in the transformations for peace.

It is proposed to dialogue on the following themes for transformations:

Democratisation of society, doctrines that impede unity and national reconciliation (Mexico Agreement 2.2), sovereignty, political rights, institutional reforms of public powers including criminal policy and the strengthening of justice, eradication of all forms of paramilitarism and armed coercion against the population, guarantees for the political participation of women, suppression of all forms of corruption, democratisation of information and communication, overcoming all forms of authoritarianism, persecution, stigmatisation, discrimination and violence in politics.

Dismantling of political clans and criminal and drug trafficking groups that control the State and the political, economic, cultural and social life of some territories.

3.2. Economic model: Promote new own and sustainable models of production in which the State fulfills its social responsibility, that overcome social inequality and the speculative and monopolistic model, that allow and promote a transition towards an economic model that does not deprecate the environment, the communities and is in accordance with the national interest.

It is proposed to dialogue on the following themes for economic transformations:

Economic model, public-private relations, fair and progressive taxation, national production, foreign economic policy, energy transitions, employment policies, informal work, overcoming hunger and poverty, illicit economies and drug trafficking, own, popular and solidarity-based economies, production of wealth through knowledge and connectivity, peasant economy, care economy and comprehensive rural reform.

3.3. Environmental policy: It includes dialogue on the relationship between human beings and all living beings, territories and nature, environmental policies and worldviews.

It is proposed to dialogue on the following themes for environmental transformations:

International environmental treaties, protection of the environment and nature, restoration of environmental rights and public environmental heritage, environmental leaderships, land-use planning, biodiversity, water and aquatic ecosystems, anti-drug policy, monocultures, deforestation, agricultural frontier, diagnosis of environmental damage and climate change.

3.4. Education and culture: In the context of the participation for peace, education and culture are fundamental processes to form an active, deliberative, critical and proactive society, thus guaranteeing rights and assuming the construction of transformations and a culture of peace.

It is proposed to dialogue on the following themes of transformations in education and culture:

Patriarchal culture and gender-based violence, education as a universal right, educational models and systems, self-education, popular education, territorial approach, interculturality and intersectionality, memory, reconciliation, recognition of the resistances, teaching of national history, knowledge society, information and communication technologies, peace as culture, promotion of the arts, democratisation of information and communication, national identity and cultural diversity, appropriation of territory and culture of care.

4. Subject of participation

The subject of participation is understood as the process of articulation of diverse actors from society as a whole, especially those historically excluded, who are committed to the transition towards peace, and who guide, implement, monitor and evaluate the process of building transformations.

It is a broad, plural, diverse and autonomous social and historical subject that examines the country's problems and builds an agenda of transformations for peace and a movement for it.

It is organised with management capacity, articulates the dispersed in order to contribute to a Great National Agreement, has territorial impact and leads collective agendas for transformations.

It convenes and mobilises sectors with which it must strengthen dialogue, such as economic unions, victims, mass media, political parties and movements, among others.

5. Scenarios and mechanisms for participation

The process of participation of society will be articulated through thematic, sectoral, territorial, population and differential aspects.

As for the scenarios, they will be articulated from the departmental, provincial and sub-regional levels to the national level, including prisons and diaspora spaces.

Mechanisms for participation have to do with the various tools to stimulate and develop the construction of institutional transformations.

They are institutional, such as peace councils, councils and assemblies.

And of a citizen nature, such as town meetings, oversight bodies, popular assemblies, among others.

It also seeks to incorporate instruments of public and social innovation, new information and communication technologies.

6. Differential and rights-based approaches

Difference and diversity will be approached from an intersectional perspective, which recognises the interactions between various factors of exclusion in Colombian society.

The recognition of difference, in a context of structural inequalities, will make it possible to generate plural and inclusive proposals for transformation.

The process of participation for peacebuilding recognises that respect for human rights, their observance, promotion, enforceability and effective guarantee are necessary conditions for advancing along this path.

Women and gender focus:

The participation process recognises the need for the voices of women, their diversities and LGBTIQ+ people, as historically excluded subjects, for which this process takes into account economic resources, methodologies and care scenarios, as well as parity spaces, in order to reduce existing gaps in effective participation.

Ethnic and population approach:

This process recognises the voices of indigenous, black, Palenquera, Raizal and Rrom communities, taking into account their own spiritualities and knowledge systems, as an active effort to overcome racism and promote diversity.

Respecting the self-determination of the peoples, their own authorities and governments, the non-regressivity of their rights, the strengthening of their perspective and their contribution to the construction of national unity.

Approach for the inclusion of the population with disabilities:

It is necessary for the population with disabilities to participate effectively and in an inclusive manner from an eco-social approach, understanding that they have been a historically excluded subject that has fought for the building of peace.

This requires guaranteeing spaces with inclusive language, didactic and pedagogical material that is easy to read, which achieves full accessibility of information for this population.

Intergenerational approach:

The participation model recognises that children, adolescents, young people and older adults are essential in the peace-building process and will be taken into account in the participation with the application of methodologies that allow giving them a voice and recognition as subjects of rights, guaranteeing their safeguarding in the spaces where they participate.

The participation of girls, boys and adolescents will have special protection in accordance with the prevalence of their rights.

7. Guarantees

In order to carry out the National Participation Plan for Transformations, it is essential to provide guarantees that allow society as a whole to participate in full conditions of inclusion, security, logistics and operations, and psychosocial accompaniment.

Of inclusion:

It includes the participation of the entire Colombian society as a whole.

This process calls for the creation of conditions so that participation is broad, guaranteeing that no one is left out on the road to consolidate a Great National Agreement.

Of Security:

The parties to the present Agreement are committed to the security and free participation of all persons, communities and collectivities in the participation process.

• Compliance with the Bilateral, National and Temporary Ceasefire Agreement - CFBNT, resolving in the short term the crisis factors that affect it;

so that the renewal, activation and permanent functioning of the Monitoring and Verification Mechanism is allowed, as well as the expansion of the actions contemplated.

• Attention to the proposals made by the communities to resolve the humanitarian crisis in affected regions.

• Actions for the dismantling of all forms of paramilitarism and other forms of armed coercion against the population.

• Respect and care for life must be an essential element in the security conditions of the process.

• Non-stigmatisation and singling out of those who participate.

• Recognition of the social and traditional forms of peasant, indigenous and Maroon protection.

Logistical and operational:

The participation process operates with resources from international cooperation and the Colombian State, administered through a fund with autonomy, accountability and transparency in which the parties and donors from the international community participate.

The execution of the resources must be accompanied and supervised by social organisations and sectors.

This requires annexes of protocols and criteria.

Psychosocial Accompaniment:

The participation process recognises the component of psychosocial assistance and self-care in adequate spaces, as well as the guarantee of safe spaces.

It allows for the collective construction, and among those who participate, of agreements on care and psychological first aid, with a gender perspective and protection of emotions, which may arise in the spaces for dialogue, incorporating ancestral knowledge and spiritual diversities.

With special attention to victims, among them victims of gender-based violence.

8. Pedagogical, communications and information access strategy

The participation process will incorporate strategies, pedagogical proposals and training spaces so that society as a whole can be involved in the construction of the Comprehensive Transformation Plan.

Criteria and cultural frameworks will be developed to agree on appropriate and accessible methodologies that apply the differential approaches, territorial, sectoral and population characteristics;

incorporating training processes and pedagogical campaigns;

articulations with artistic, cultural and educational initiatives in the institutional, social and community spheres;

open classroom methodologies, forums, debates and word circles, permanent elaboration of pedagogical material for mass distribution, taking into account differential perspectives.

In terms of communications, participation and the transformations for peace require an alliance between alternative media, popular communication, public media, content creators and the mass media to raise awareness and communicate to the population as a whole about the peace process and the construction of the Great National Accord.

Information will be accessible, available, relevant, understandable and sufficient, with information security protocols in place.

9. Follow-up and evaluation

The participation process must have a clear system and instruments for follow-up, monitoring and evaluation, with flexible and participatively constructed indicators where organisations and communities are the protagonists of follow-up and evaluation.

Caracas, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, 24 May 2024.

Signed,

Delegation National Government Delegation National Liberation Army

Vera Grabe Loewenherz

Head of Government Delegation

Pablo Beltrán

Head of Delegation of ELN

Iván Cepeda Castro

Aureliano Carbonell

Rosmery Quintero Castro

Ricardo Pérez

Rodrigo Botero García

Manuela Márquez

Adelaida Jiménez Cortés

Nicolas Rodríguez

Horacio Guerrero García

Mauricio Iguarán

Dayana Paola Urzola

Fabian Sepulvera [sic]

Orlando Romero Reyes

Camila [sic] Ariza

Carlos Rosero

Álvaro Matallana Eslava

[No signature]

Nigeria Rentería

Olga Lilia Silva

As witnesses and depositaries

Guarantor Countries

Gral. Carlos Martínez Mendoza, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Claudia Helietta González Hernández, United Mexican States

Javier Caamaño Cairo, Republico of Cuba

Luis Miguel Meneses Swaneck, Republic of Chile

Glivania Maria de Oliveira, Federative Republic of Brazil

Marit Brandtzaeg, Kingdom of Norway

Permanent Accompaniers

Raúl Yamandu Rosende Rodríguez, Deputy Special Representative and Deputy Head of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia

Mons. Héctor Fabio Henao Gaviria, Delegate for the Church – State Relations, CEC.

From the Group of Supporting, Accompanying, and Cooperating Countries – GPAAC,

Joaquín de Arístegui Laborde Spanish Ambassador