Why is inclusion important for the development of Mexico? Mexico is a culturally rich and diverse country with a wealth of natural resources, but also a very unequal country. The already large divide between poor and rich is even wider for women in poverty, who experience the worst development outcomes according to regular evaluations. Being…
The USAID Human Rights Activity (HRA) in Colombia supports the Colombian government and civil society to foster respect for human rights and protect vulnerable populations. The Colombian government is negotiating a peace accord with the FARC guerrilla group after 50 years of conflict. What are the biggest challenges that the demobilization of the FARC presents,…
In 2000, Colombia was besieged by what had been one of the most violent decades in the history of its armed internal conflict. The rise and consolidation of paramilitary groups throughout the country that had begun as a self-protection movement against the guerrillas were out of control, and Colombia saw some of the worst human…
There is a growing recognition that democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG) needs to be integrated into programs in other sectors of development. The policy community model takes a complementary approach, integrating sector policy reform objectives into DRG-focused projects. This model, which my team and I developed under USAID’s Program Representasi (ProRep) project in Indonesia,…
USAID’s Human Rights Program III (HRP III) developed an innovative country strategy focused on regional efforts in Colombia, targeting eight departments and 40 municipalities and based on four core components: promotion of a culture of human rights, prevention of human rights violations, response to human rights violations, and a focus on gender issues. Never executed…