DEVELOPMENTAL EVALUATION COLOMBIA COMPLEXITY-AWARE M&E Fourth Iteration CONTRACT NO. AID-OAA-I-15-00017, ORDER NO. AID-514-TO-17-00010 PHOTO: JUAN RUIZ Submitted to: USAID/Colombia Submitted December 2019 Contractor: Democracy International, Inc. 7600 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 1010 Bethesda, MD 20814 Tel: 301-961-1660 www.democracyinternational.com ACRONYMS AJUAP Asociación de Jóvenes Unidos por el Pueblo AMEP Activity Monitoring and Evaluation Plan ANDI Asociación Nacional de Empresarios de Colombia AUC Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture CNMH Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica CNRR Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación CRC Corporación Reconciliación Colombia DANE Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística DE Developmental Evaluation DNP Departamento Nacional de Planeación EAFIT Escuela de Administración, Finanzas e Instituto Tecnológico EEP Main Ecological Structure ELN Ejército de Liberación Nacional FARC Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia FGD Focus Group Discussion GAP Good Agricultural Practices GOC Government of Colombia GSI Gender and Social Inclusion ICBF Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar ICOR Index of Organizational Capabilities for Reconciliation IDEAM Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales LGBTI Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, and Intersex LRNC La Reconciliación es Nuestro Cuento PAR Programa de Alianzas para la Reconciliación POT Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial PPA Public-Private Alliances SENA Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje SNCRPA National System of Coordination of Criminal Responsibility for Adolescents SRPA Sistema de Responsabilidad Penal para Adolescentes TOC Theory of Change ULATA Unidades Locales de Asistencia Técnica Agropecuaria y Ambiental UMATA Unidades Municipales de Asistencia Técnica Agropecuaria UNDP United Nations Development Program CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY i INTRODUCTION 1 EVALUATION SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY 2 EVALUATION SCOPE 2 METHODOLOGICAL STRATEGY 3 DEVELOPMENTAL EVALUATION OF THE RECONCILIATION ACTIVITY 4 PROJECT-LEVEL OBSERVATIONS AND ANALYSIS (Q1) 4 CENTRO NACIONAL DE MEMORIA HISTÓRICA: MEMORY RECONSTRUCTION INITIATIVES 5 ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREA: MEMORY RECONSTRUCTION 7 RECONCILIATION PROCESSES 11 SUSTAINABILITY 13 F. ANDI: INCLUSIVE LINKAGES INVOLVING VULNERABLE PRODUCERS 14 ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREA: INCLUSIVE LINKAGES 17 RECONCILIATION PROCESSES 21 GENDER ISSUES 23 SUSTAINABILITY 25 CORPORACIÓN RECONCILIACIÓN COLOMBIA 25 ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREA: PRODUCTIVE STRENGTHENING 26 RECONCILIATION PROCESSES 27 GENDER ISSUES 29 SUSTAINABILITY 29 PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT FOR AT-RISK YOUTH FROM URBAN AREAS 30 ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREA: PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT FOR RECONCILIATION 31 GENDER ISSUES 33 SUSTAINABILITY 34 CONTEXT ANALYSIS: TRENDS, RISKS, AND CONSEQUENCES FOR INTERVENTION AND RESULTS (Q2 & Q3) 34 THE CONTEXT OF THE RECONCILIATION ACTIVITY IN RURAL AREAS OF INTERVENTION 35 ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION AND CLIMATE FACTORS 35 UNFORESEEN CHANGES IN INSTITUTIONS 38 TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE 40 PRESENCE OF ARMED ACTORS ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TERRITORIES 42 THE CONTEXT OF THE RECONCILIATION ACTIVITY IN URBAN AREAS OF INTERVENTION 45 YOUTH VULNERABILITY 45 EMPOWERMENT AND A LEGACY OF THE POWER OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 47 RECOMMENDATIONS AND LESSONS LEARNED 49 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC PARTNERS 49 STRATEGIC RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SUSTAINABILITY 53 THEORY OF CHANGE REFLECTIONS 56 ANNEX A: LIST OF SECONDARY SOURCES USED FOR THE CONTEXT ANALYSIS A-1 ANNEX B: LIST OF PROJECTS EVALUATED IN THIS ITERATION. B-1 ANNEX C: SUMMARY OF IMPLEMENTATION FINDINGS C-1 i EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report synthesizes the meaningful observations, data gathering, and results of the mixed-method analyses that C-AME has completed to date and leverages this body of work to address three primary questions about the Reconciliation Activity: 1. What is considered working and not working (and by whom) as the intervention unfolds? 2. How is the Reconciliation Activity connected to and affected by the wider context? 3. How and why do contextual factors influence results and what are the trends in the wider context? This developmental evaluation focused on five municipalities: two projects in Bogotá, locality of Usme, in southeastern Bogotá; two projects in Bojayá (Chocó department); one project in Buenaventura (Valle del Cauca department); one project in Medellín (Antioquia department); two projects in San Carlos with the same organization (Antioquia department). Within these municipalities, C-AME examined work by three (out of five) of PAR’s national strategic partners: Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica (CNMH), Fundación Asociación Nacional de Empresarios de Colombia (F. ANDI), and Corporación Reconciliación Colombia (CRC). C-AME selected these projects due to their relevance within PAR’s strategic framework, as each one of them contributes to accomplishment of PAR´s three principal results. CNMH´s work contributes to the achievement of Result One (R-1): Improved capacity for developing truth-telling and memory mechanisms; F. ANDI focuses on Result Two (R-2): Awareness and mobilization increased through inclusive initiatives, and Result Three (R-3): Local reconciliation initiatives strengthened through strategic public-private alliances (PPAs). C-AME's examination of CRC’s work focuses on the advancement of PAR’s local partner strategy as its transition partner, to ensure continuity and sustainability. Next, C-AME highlights the main findings per implementing partner. CENTRO NACIONAL DE MEMORIA HISTÓRICA (CNMH): MEMORY RECONSTRUCTION INITIATIVES C-AME focused on two CNMH memory initiatives, both initiatives aim to recover individual and collective memories of victims of the armed conflict, as well as those of groups who have been historically excluded from economic development. The project Historias de Vida de las Víctimas Mortales de la Masacre de Bojayá sought to reconstruct the life stories of the victims killed in the 2002 Bojayá massacre through the production of family albums that preserve the individual and collective memory of the victims. The project Memorias para Vivir con Dignidad in Buenaventura had the goal of developing a documentary to portray the memories of resilience of Afro-Colombian communities engaged in the 2017 civic strike. Significant achievements of these two memory initiatives include a balance between collective and individual memories, which resulted from the implementation of CNMH methodologies. This specific approach towards a respectful and inclusive memory exercise also achieved progress in the rebuilding of the social fabric that was damaged because of an active armed conflict where the projects were implemented. The projects also included Afro-Colombian cultural practices and promoted intergenerational interaction. On the other hand, C-AME found that there was an incomplete methodological transfer of PAR’s Reconciliation Approach in both projects. C-AME observed the presence of empowerment, dialogue, and respect in the memory initiatives, all three of which are key elements of reconciliation as defined in PAR’s theory of change. However, the data C-AME collected indicated that the presence of these elements was not as a result of PAR Reconciliation Approach, nor did C-AME observe the implementation of trust￾building activities derived from the Reconciliation Approach. This is relevant because both the initiatives were implemented in municipalities where there is an urgent need for reconciliation, due to ongoing ii armed conflict and weakened levels of trust between the municipalities’ Afro-Colombian communities and the national government. The non-inclusion of PAR’s Reconciliation Approach in these projects limited their capacity to continue building reconciliation skills and addressing the issue of lack of trust in state institutions. F. ANDI INCLUSIVE LINKAGES INVOLVING VULNERABLE PRODUCERS The agreement between PAR and F. ANDI seeks to promote transformative alliances that boost economic and social opportunities for vulnerable individuals and communities who face economic hardship, especially in rural areas. One of the ways F. ANDI is seeking to do so is through what it calls “inclusive linkages,” between producers and buyers. This developmental evaluation focused on four initiatives around four agricultural products: strawberries, lettuce, honey, and plantains. In the lettuce and strawberry inclusive linkage projects, producers indicated that technical assistance from the intervention allowed them to increase output and produce higher quality crops. The implementing partner and beneficiaries highlight the identification and consolidation of commercial partnerships as a project achievement. In Usme, F. ANDI achieved the organizational goals set by the groups of producers. The model focuses on commercial relationships with wholesale buyers or large restaurant chains located far from the point of production, before considering buyers in local markets. This could become a missed opportunity to strengthen the local communities towards reconciliation. The cases C-AME evaluated were attempting to build a commercial relationship between an association of vulnerable producers and one buyer or a cluster of buyers. In all cases, F. ANDI identified the buyer and potential sellers. This has the potential to affect producers’ empowerment and lead producers to overspecialize in certain crops at the expense of building their diversified resilience, and under these circumstances, there is a risk of the consolidation of a permanent monopsony. If potential risks are not considered in this business model, it has limited capacity to produce behavioral and attitudinal changes towards reconciliation. PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT FOR AT-RISK YOUTH FROM URBAN AREAS The pilot project Psychosocial support for at-risk youth from urban areas of SRPA implemented by CRC, took place in ICBF-led youth centers in Medellín, Cúcuta, Florencia, Santa Marta, and Cartagena, but the present analysis focuses on Medellín as an area of focus for this iteration of the DE. The project works with youth from the Sistema de Responsabilidad Penal para Adolescentes1 (SRPA). Results for this evaluation come from the fieldwork conducted in Medellín. The implementation was successful with the use of a methodology that avoided creating a sense of obligation among beneficiaries and increased trust among them and towards facilitators. Integration of DecidoSer and participant engagement resulted in the beginning of emotional awareness. On the other hand, despite integration of DecidoSer into the LRNC methodology, C-AME found that in practice, the workshop sessions showed a division between these approaches, rather than a fusion of them. In addition, the implementers mentioned that they deliberately chose participants who demonstrated leadership skills, which may have contributed to lower dropout rates. At the institutional level, interviewees from ICBF and its operators highlighted that their heavy workload could be a factor that limits their engagement. CONTEXT 1 Criminal Responsibility System for Adolescents iii The context factors below affect PAR operationally or potentially limit the attainment of components of its Theory of Change. Context factors sometimes become barriers that affect implementation and limit intervention results. Analysis from this section contributes to better presaging of unanticipated roadblocks in implementation, floating alternative causal explanations, and suggesting promising paths of intervention to PAR implementers and partners that account for trends or changes in local contexts. In rural areas, 1) climate changes and difficulties of access have led to water shortages, which in turn result in cost overruns for beneficiaries, and ultimately negatively affects the quality of the products and increases community tensions. 2) Unforeseen changes in institutions, such as the appointment of the Director of the CNMH, have generated delays in implementation and further erosion of the fragile trust of the inhabitants towards the state. 3) The deficit in transport infrastructure or adequate means of transportation affects projects such as APLAMEDA and AFRICOLMENAS, prompting beneficiaries to assume additional costs and efforts to transport their products to buyers, to the detriment of their quality. 4) Armed actors generate logistical and security obstacles and discourage leadership, which in projects such as those of the CNMH translates into memory blockers, reducing the effectiveness of the interventions and restricting the reconstruction of the social fabric. 5) Failing to account for agricultural traditions of beneficiaries in productive interventions and the historic ties of certain crops to the land can lead to a mismatch in expectations and outcomes when introducing new crops. Similarly, lack of knowledge about the characteristics of the territories and populations can affect the relationship between implementers, beneficiaries and buyers, making it difficult to build trust, effective dialogue, and reach agreements. In urban areas, 1) The vulnerability of young people to poverty, social exclusion, recruitment into illegal armed groups, violence, and drug trafficking affects reach of interventions such as the CRC initiative, since these factors have a direct knock-on effect on their ability to engage. 2) The empowerment of social movements and the articulation of beneficiaries' agendas with other key actors in the territory, as in the case of the Memories project in Buenaventura, generates greater opportunities to solve unforeseen problems and to ensure the success of interventions. These examples offer an opportunity for lessons learned that are applicable in other PAR interventions with similar characteristics. RECOMMENDATIONS AND LESSONS LEARNED RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC PARTNERS Recommendations for CNMH 1. Unexpected changes in the CNMH such as transformations in the intervention agenda and the replacement of public officials in managerial positions, had negative effects on trust in public institutions. For this, C-AME recommends support the mediation processes between beneficiary community and the state, taking into consideration the double role of the CNMH as a representative of the state and implementer of reconciliation initiatives. In addition, PAR can improve adaptive management practices by adjusting the financial and administrative procedures to deal with unforeseen situations within implementers such as CNMH, that affect operational capacity. 2. Under the implementation of the Memorias project, conflict between Sueños Reales and production company of the documentary led to the breaking of their contractual agreement several months into the project. For these situations, C-AME recommends, design capacity-building strategies that consider context factors and potential implementation problems when hiring operators for projects in which beneficiary organizations are inexperienced and have limited resources. iv 3. The difference between the way the beneficiary communities of Buenaventura and PAR understand reconciliation reveals a useful area for dialogue between the interested parties. C-AME suggests that PAR strengthen the uptake of the Reconciliation Approach by the strategic partner CNMH to promote alignment between PAR’s definition of reconciliation and local definitions. An improved dialogue would generate feedback that may be useful for strengthening the operational definition of reconciliation for PAR in implementation processes. Recommendations for F. ANDI 1. The positioning of agribusiness in the market requires the supply of quality products in sufficient volumes that meet specific standards. C-AME recommends that in projects that are introducing new types of crops that producers are not accustomed to, early in the implementation, technical assistance should raise awareness and provide specific information to producers about expected volume and quality standards. Given that F. ANDI and producers of lettuce and strawberries acknowledged that inclusive linkages use a trial and error process, the implementer should anticipate risks and losses, as well as mechanisms to capture lessons learned in this process. 2. Despite success establishing a commercial relationship, producers still feel they do not have enough bargaining power when negotiating with the buyer. C-AME suggests that as part of project activities, F. ANDI should clarify the scope of the intervention with producers, in particular the local barriers. The use of the Reconciliation Approach, combined with technical tools such as pricing, quality standards, and mechanisms to dispute potential conflicts between the buyer and the producers, could enhance producers’ negotiation abilities. Further, PAR and its partners should facilitate a mentality change to encourage participants to focus more on the program’s ultimate goal of reconciliation to ensure that agriculturally focused projects really are contributing to this. 3. F. ANDI focuses on the development of a commercial relationship with wholesale buyers or large restaurant chains, without considering alternative buyers in local markets, leading to a risk of the consolidation of a monopsony. In order to avoid this, C-AME recommends supporting alternative, local markets that leverage the agro-ecological capacities and community values. In addition, PAR and F. ANDI should develop strategies to identify additional buyers and provide technical support to improve producer communities’ resilience when entering competitive markets. Lessons learned from the CRC-Youth Initiative 1. Strengthen the methodological harmonization between DecidoSer and LRNC. A more comprehensive methodology would benefit both from the knowledge of the implementing partner and the operator of the work with youth from SRPA, and from the potential of the drivers of the PAR reconciliation approach. 2. PAR can support CRC to adapt its internal initiatives and timelines through (1) protocols that allow them to make some faster decisions in case of contingencies; (2) thorough pre-planning processes, take into account the rigid bureaucratic procedures that demand a lot of time, in order not to delay the implementation of the project; (3) communication channels that allow a more fluid dialogue between local implementers and centers of decision-making and enable permanent feedback. 3. The way in which the subjects of intervention were selected (convenience sample) may lead to biases in the identification of the effects of the intervention, which limit the capacity of the implementers to determine intervention effectiveness. For this reason, C-AME suggests considering this factor when delivering pilot results, since it affects the capacity to verify possible effects of the intervention on the overall SRPA population and to determine the replicability of this experience. v STRATEGIC RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SUSTAINABILITY 1. Integrate the Reconciliation Approach with the methodologies of the strategic partners C-AME observed that the transfer of the Reconciliation Approach of PAR to the implementer and from this to the beneficiaries could be improved to generate more and better results. C-AME suggest identifying crosscutting activities, including psychosocial support and promotion of gender and social inclusion, among its structural objectives. In addition, PAR should foster spaces for discussion with its strategic partners to receive and provide feedback on the potential elements that are preventing partners from fully integrating the Reconciliation Approach into their activities with PAR beneficiaries. 2. Increase awareness about the possibility of emotional distress when working with victims of the armed conflict During some of the activities, emotional overload occurred that facilitators could not manage effectively, causing implementation delays while facilitators applied emotional recovery strategies before continuing. C-AME suggests that PAR establishes alliances with psychological care programs, or with institutions that are empowered to carry out this type of intervention. It is important in planning to anticipate the possible psycho-emotional effects that the activities may have, and to consider beforehand ways to help participants process them, allowing for greater possibilities and its partners implement preparatory activities to foster psychological support for beneficiaries in order to avoid re-traumatization and expand possibilities for individual and collective healing. 3. Identify strategies to implement the Reconciliation Approach with families and close networks of direct participants in implementation to build protective environments Consistent with C-AME’s findings from previous developmental evaluations, the implementation of the Reconciliation Approach should involve relatives, close network members, and communities in the psychosocial support activities. In order to rebuild the social fabric, the close family circle could be involved in psychosocial support sessions designed specifically to enhance relationships and support networks for rehabilitating youth. C-AME recommends as a strategy to scale up the reconciliation process, that PAR can identify mechanisms to engage family and participants’ network members in the Reconciliation Approach and psychosocial support workshops. 4. Continue working with beneficiaries, implementing partners, and stakeholders to increase awareness about gender disparities C-AME observed a discontinuation of the work on gender issues, which makes it harder to promote gender equality narratives, empowerment of women, and LGBTI inclusion. C-AME identified narratives that still use patriarchal language in their discussion of women and gender issues, which is an issue PAR should continue working to address. C-AME suggests PAR continue applying the Gender and Social Inclusion Strategy consistently and intentionally in its interventions. 5. Develop strategies to address connector problems: social and economic vulnerability of rural communities Agricultural producers face significant challenges to improving their capacity to increase production and output. Many of these challenges relate to precarious socio-economic conditions, in order to guarantee the sustainability of the market-focused reconciliation initiatives. C-AME suggests that the inclusive linkage model could take into consideration financial inclusion approaches such as the following: • Identify financial institutions that offer associative credit lines. • Connect producers with local extension services that provide support for developing short-term financial education plans. vi • Connect producers with financial institutions, economic solidarity organizations, and donor-funded development projects. • Identify specific credit lines for low-income rural women. 6. Identify allies in the sector of science, innovation, and technology The lack of access to rural extension services could affect farmers’ capacity to improve socioeconomic opportunities, and limit the project’s ability to ensure expected outcomes as part of the overall PAR program. C-AME recommends identify potential allies from the science, technology, and innovation industry to complement available extension services and build upon activities to develop technology-based tools to improve access to information about crop management, marketing tools, and market opportunities. Projects can leverage these innovations to connect smallholder vulnerable farmers with critical information for crop management, post-harvest, and marketing opportunities. REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF CHANGE In this iteration of the DE, C-AME has identified the challenges that stemmed from incomplete transfer of the Reconciliation Approach, however, evidence from this DE indicates this is not just a challenge of implementation, but one that represents a disconnect between the program ToC and implementation. C￾AME identified two critical gaps that PAR must bridge to ensure it meets its objectives: • Ensure transfer of the Reconciliation Approach to beneficiaries F. ANDI and CNMH suspended or reduced the use of the Reconciliation Approach when they began implementation. Per PAR’s ToC, the strategic alliances with partners are effective at leading Colombians to act on reconciliation if and only if implementers incorporate the Reconciliation Approach consistently in their interventions and employ it with beneficiaries and their families and communities, if necessary. • Develop strategies to adapt activities to “common unresolved issues” While contextual problems are outside PAR’s scope of work, they may represent an opportunity for the program to strengthen its mechanisms for adapting to factors like poverty, armed conflict, unemployment, and violence and, as a result, create mitigation strategies that reduce negative effects on program results. The anticipation and adaptive management of common unresolved problems conditions the scope of the Reconciliation Activity, so PAR must anticipate them in the planning of the initiatives and in the design of specific measures for mitigating risk. Per PAR’s ToC, the strategic alliances with partners are effective at leading Colombians to take action on reconciliation if and only if PAR and its strategic partners take into consideration the “common unresolved issues” and develop mechanisms for adapting to improve program effectiveness. 1 INTRODUCTION Under its contract with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Democracy International (DI) is responsible for conducting the Complexity-Aware Monitoring and Evaluation (C￾AME) activity for the USAID/Colombia Reconciliation Activity - PAR (Programa de Alianzas para la Reconciliación), implemented by ACDI/VOCA. As part of this activity, DI presents in this document the results of the fourth developmental evaluation. The developmental evaluation is a systematic effort to track and analyze the results that emerge under conditions of complexity, documenting and interpreting the dynamics, interactions, and interdependencies that occur during the implementation period of the Reconciliation Activity. DI aims to provide information useful for PAR’s adaptive management throughout its lifecycle, as well as to inform lessons learned that will be applicable after the project ends. PAR, meanwhile, aims to enhance the capacity of both the Government of Colombia (GOC) and civil society to strengthen and build reconciliation processes by fostering trust and tolerance among beneficiaries. Dismantling the aggressor/victim dynamic and narratives is essential if the Reconciliation Activity is to achieve its mission of reintegrating ex-combatants and providing support and services to victims of violence during the conflict. C-AME supports reflection on PAR’s practices, challenges, and successes, as well as those of organizations that PAR works with, and which may indirectly affect beneficiary attitudes and behaviors with respect to reconciliation. To this end, C-AME aims to provide supplemental information and analysis through its ongoing evaluation and monitoring activities and periodic reports. Developmental evaluation is the iterative process of collecting and analyzing supplemental data, reflecting on its relevance to programming, and sharing findings and recommendations with USAID and its implementing partners. C-AME summarizes these efforts semiannually in its Developmental Evaluation Report. The Reconciliation Activity can benefit from a flexible learning and evaluation approach because of its distinctive characteristics. PAR seeks to generate changes in the attitudes and practices of diverse actors throughout Colombia. According to its Theory of Change, it will produce attitudinal change in Colombians who will be taking actions to strengthen reconciliation. The program’s strategic approach consists of three interconnected results: R-1. Improved capacity for developing truth-telling and memory mechanisms; R-2. Awareness and mobilization increased through inclusive initiatives; and R-3. Local reconciliation initiatives strengthened through strategic PPAs. In addition, PAR established three structural objectives: i. Local Partner Strategy, ii. Gender and Social Inclusion (GSI), and iii. Psychosocial Support, the last two form PAR Reconciliation Approach, implemented through the DecidoSer and the Gender and Social Inclusion methodological strategies. The historical, geopolitical, and social contexts of each territory where PAR operates can and do influence the successes PAR activities can achieve. The Reconciliation Activity is therefore not a “one-size-fits-all” development program. Developmental evaluation may support PAR in several ways, such as identifying strategic lines of inquiry, presaging unanticipated roadblocks in implementation, floating alternative causal explanations, and suggesting promising paths of intervention to project implementers that account for trends or changes in local contexts. The structure of this document is as follows: Section 1 presents the scope and methodology applied for this developmental evaluation; Section 2 details the results of this developmental evaluation, broken into two sub-sections—first, project-level observations and analysis and second, context analysis, highlighting the effects of the rural and urban contexts on PAR interventions and results; and Section 3 concludes the 2 report with recommendations and constructive reflections. Finally, this report includes four annexes containing additional details about the data analysis, tables, and references. EVALUATION SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY This report synthesizes the meaningful observations, data gathering, and results of the mixed-method analyses that we have completed to date and leverages this body of work to address three primary questions about the Reconciliation Activity: 1. What is considered working and not working (and by whom) as the intervention unfolds? 2. How is the Reconciliation Activity connected to and affected by the wider context? 3. How and why do contextual factors influence results and what are the trends in the wider context? The next section unpacks meaning in the evaluation questions and places geographic and project boundaries around them. EVALUATION SCOPE Field data collection and analysis for this developmental evaluation are limited to five prioritized municipalities located in three regions of PAR’s focus: Central, Pacific, and Antioquia-Urabá (see Figure 1). In the Central region, C-AME conducted fieldwork in Bogotá, more specifically, in locality No. 5, Usme, in southeastern Bogotá. Although Bogotá is the largest urban area in Colombia, most of its land is rural, and Usme is one of the localities with a significant portion of rural lands. In the Pacific Region, C-AME focused on interventions implemented in Bojayá (Chocó) and Buenaventura (Valle del Cauca). In the Antioquia-Urabá Region, fieldwork took place in Medellín and San Carlos (Antioquia). In its first three developmental evaluations, C-AME focused its efforts on projects that PAR’s local partners implemented. For this iteration, the focus is on local level implementation conducted by three (out of five) of PAR’s national strategic partners: • Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica2 (CNMH) which contributes to Result One (R-1); • Fundación Asociación Nacional de Empresarios de Colombia3 (F. ANDI), which focuses on Result Two (R-2) and Result Three (R-3), and; • Corporación Reconciliación Colombia4 (CRC) focuses on the advancement of PAR’s local partner strategy as its transition partner, to ensure continuity and sustainability. 2 National Center for Historical Memory. 3 National Association of Entrepreneurs of Colombia. 4 Reconciliation Corporation Colombia. Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1. Geographic Scope Figure 1: PAR Target Municipalities 3 Based on C-AME’s focus on strategic partners, C-AME prioritized eight projects from the area of geographic focus for this iteration, as described in Annex A. C-AME used the following criteria for project selection based on project information data PAR provided to C-AME from MONITOR System, the Mission-wide M&E tool used by USAID/Colombia: 1. Scope: C-AME narrowed its focus to the three strategic partners, CNMH, F. ANDI, and CRC. C-AME further narrowed this to projects working at the local level, in at least one of the municipalities of focus in this evaluation iteration (Figure 1). 2. Implementation status: C-AME ensured that the local projects selected were active at the start of this iteration cycle or had closed at least six months before this date. 3. Number of projects per municipality: C-AME made certain to select at least one project per target municipality. METHODOLOGICAL STRATEGY C-AME developed data collection and analysis tools to examine the national and local context, in parallel with project-level analyses, under the assumption that the wider contextual factors affected the project implementation and performance. Understanding the highly nuanced dynamics of each region of Colombia allows C-AME to draw preliminary conclusions about what works and does not work as the intervention unfolds. Triangulating results across all cases (Q1) and analyses of contexts (Q2 and Q3) allows C-AME to formulate meaningful lessons learned and recommendations that PAR may wish to consider in future interventions. During the data collection process, the C-AME team conducted 36 interviews and 7 focus group discussions (FGDs). C-AME collected data from 90 informants (53% women and 47% men), including: beneficiaries, PAR coordinators, context actors5, representatives from CNMH, F. ANDI, and CRC, and stakeholders engaged in projects working with NUTRESA, Crepes & Waffles, and Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar6 (ICBF). C-AME held most of its data collection events (40%) in Bogota due to the location of the strategic partners and stakeholders. The full breakdown of data collection locations is in Figure 2. C-AME also consulted relevant academic research and consulted information produced by media outlets at the local, regional, and national levels (Annex B). Finally, C-AME consulted reports from CNMH, F. ANDI, and CRC, and conducted interviews with staff members from PAR and its partners to clarify relevant information about projects when this was not detailed or not available in 5 State institutions at the local and national levels, private organizations, think tanks, relevant non-governmental organizations, and non-profit entities 6 Colombian Family Welfare Institute. Figure 2: Data Collection Events by Municipality 4 writing. In this regard, some of the projects were reconstructed throughout the interview data provided by the funder and implementing partners. C-AME analyzed demographic, socio-economic, and security data to characterize and further analyze PAR’s implementation environment and used this data to highlight possible contingencies that may restrict the scope of its work. C-AME applied textual statistical analysis to its unique databases of beneficiary, implementing partner, and stakeholder narratives to systematically examine interviews and identify key themes to develop a method for coding the data. The C-AME team observed and collected useful data on site to characterize the dynamics of reconciliation, key actors, relationships, conflicts of interest, and other elements that facilitate understanding the environment in which PAR is operating. C-AME used NVivo 11 and T-lab to organize and to conduct the first level of primary data analysis (text analysis and text mining). These two programs allow the construction of databases with different types of discursive information, as well as to explore relationships between categories and concepts, to further identify learning experiences and help formulate recommendations for improvement. Using the results from the third developmental evaluation, the C-AME team was able to predetermine levels for the analysis: reconciliation approach, differential approaches, and sustainability. The C-AME team used the results from NVivo 11 as the baseline to identify themes within the DE data for further coding. Because developmental evaluation scrutinizes closed and ongoing projects, insights are not only valid if they result from formal analysis. As such, C-AME relies on formal analysis as well as observations and educated hunches as the basis for further analysis, learning, and recommendations. DEVELOPMENTAL EVALUATION OF THE RECONCILIATION ACTIVITY This section presents the results of primary and secondary data collection and analysis addressing the core questions of this developmental evaluation. We describe and analyze the eight PAR interventions in five municipalities (see annex A) C-AME visited during this evaluation period to address Question 1: What is considered working and not working (and by whom) as the intervention unfolds? Our response to Question 2 (How is the Reconciliation Activity connected to and affected by the wider context?) details and analyzes significant contextual factors from the local levels that affect Reconciliation Activity implementation. Response to Question 3 (How and why do contextual factors influence results and what are the trends in the wider context?) examines local context factors that influence Reconciliation Activity results. Our presentation strategy below is deliberate: first, we present our project-level analysis in response to Question 1, and then group and address Questions 2 and 3 together, in the same sub-section on context. This has several advantages: it limits unnecessary and semantically problematic disconnections between how PAR is “connected to” context and how it is “influenced by” context; it allows us to present all levels of context fluidly and in relation to the projects we have studied this cycle; and it enables us to draw on project-level findings as examples of how these issues concretely affect PAR projects. PROJECT-LEVEL OBSERVATIONS AND ANALYSIS (Q1) In order to respond the question 1 (Q1), What is considered working and not working (and by whom) as the intervention unfolds? C-AME conducted a desk review of project documents provided by PAR and carried out interviews and focus group discussions with PAR implementing partners, beneficiaries, and private and public entities engaged in project implementation. This exercise of primary data collection seeks to capture 5 perceptions and experiences regarding implementation, considerations about reconciliation processes related to project implementation, and identify achievements, challenges, and lessons learned from those engaged in implementation. For brevity and cogency, this section presents our major insights from the implementation carried out by each of PAR’s three strategic partners as described above. A table summarizing findings from each intervention is in Annex C. Detailed evaluation results by project at the local level are available in Annex D. The CNMH projects examined here focus on memory reconstruction initiatives given the effects of the armed conflict in communities such as Bojayá, and the increasing social discomfort due to conditions of extreme poverty in the city of Buenaventura, home of the country’s most important port. F. ANDI projects focus on the development of inclusive linkages to improve productive and organizational capacities of vulnerable agricultural producers in each of the local initiatives evaluated in this iteration. The CRC projects focus on two areas: improving economic opportunities for vulnerable producers and psychosocial support for at-risk youth in urban areas. Both F. ANDI and CRC have worked with a beekeeping association in San Carlos (Antioquia) called AFRICOLMENAS. An analysis of each strategic partner permits C-AME to properly attend to results of, and influences on, projects that work with specific focus areas and to explore patterns across implementation per strategic partner. CENTRO NACIONAL DE MEMORIA HISTÓRICA: MEMORY RECONSTRUCTION INITIATIVES For this iteration of the developmental evaluation, C-AME focused on two CNMH memory initiatives that came about within the framework of the agreement between PAR and the CNMH (PAR-01-011). Both initiatives aim to recover individual and collective memories of victims of the armed conflict, as well as those of groups who have been historically excluded from economic development. The first project, Historias de Vida de las Víctimas Mortales de la Masacre de Bojayá7 (Historias de Vida), started in March 2018 and ended in November 2019. This project seeks to reconstruct the life stories of the victims killed in the 2002 Bojayá massacre through the production of family albums that preserve the individual and collective memory of the victims. In this case, CNMH collaborated with the Asociación de Jóvenes Unidos por el Pueblo8 (AJUAP) to engage local organizations during project implementation. In addition, Historias de vida in Bojayá received support from UNDP, and the Government of Colombia (GOC) through CNMH, the Attorney General's Office, and the Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses, 9 (a.k.a. Medicina Legal). This collaborative effort supported forensic efforts to formally recognize and bury the bodies of victims from the massacre, previously unidentified and buried in mass graves, and to reconstruct their life stories through a series of photo albums. In November 2019, the remains of massacre victims were returned to their home community. By doing so, the project hoped to rescue and preserve the community’s memory and provide spaces for those in mourning to heal together. CNMH implemented the second project, Memorias para Vivir con Dignidad10 (Memorias) in Buenaventura between December 2018 and October 2019 with the goal of developing a documentary to portray the memories of resilience of Afro-Colombian communities engaged in the 2017 civic strike. CNMH partnered 7 Life Stories of Fatal Victims of the Bojayá Massacre. 8 Association of United Youth for the People. 9 National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences. 10 Memories to Live with Dignity. 6 with Fundación Sueños Reales11 (Sueños Reales for short) to carry out this initiative. The strike was a civilian response to the government and private sector’s exploitation of the city and its resources to support construction and expansion of the port, which has displaced several communities. Strikers also denounced government neglect in distributing the economic benefits from the port to the residents of the city. The protest, led by the Comité del Paro Cívico12 (of which Sueños Reales is a member), lasted 22 days, led to the negotiation of a pact and a law that would address all community demands, including improved access to public utilities and redistribution of economic benefits from the port. Memory and oblivion are in constant tension in human societies. This tension is not necessarily negative, but it helps to create identity and epitomizes the struggles that persons, groups, and communities currently experience constructed from situations they have had to endure in the past. This is especially relevant in Bojayá as the population experienced various forms of violence during the armed conflict, the most notable being the massacre that took place on May 2, 2002 during a confrontation between the 57th front of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia 13 (FARC) and the Elmer Cárdenas Bloc of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia14 (AUC). Determining what should be remembered and what should be forgotten is an ongoing process that requires discussion in Bojayá and in Colombian society overall. In Buenaventura, the socio-economic situation of city residents and those in rural surrounding areas remains dire, and community members have been excluded from recent political agenda-making, which has led to social unrest. The growth of memory processes in both areas has not only provoked discussions about how the community wants to be seen, but has also allowed many organizations to become agents of memory in the region and has given Bojayá and Buenaventura the mechanisms necessary to advance their memory dialogues with state institutions and armed groups. 11 Dreams Come True Foundation. 12 Civic Strike Committee. 13 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. 14 United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. Photo 1 Focus group with beneficiaries from Sueños Reales (September, 2019 - Photo by Juan P. Luque) 7 In the next section, C-AME will present the evaluation results identifying achievements and challenges on the memory reconstruction area, reconciliation processes and sustainability. Additional evaluation details on each project are available in Annex D. ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREA: MEMORY RECONSTRUCTION Achievements Collective memory, individual memory and “Memoria viva.” 15 Individual and collective memories are intertwined and form an integral part of memory processes. Reaching an equilibrium between these two forms of remembering requires constant dialogue and agreement. Participants in the Historias de vida project were able to use memory as a device to dignify and heal each family. Memoria viva is an innovative and resourceful way of treating the memory of the victims of the massacre. CNMH, with support from the community, developed an approach to memory building that centered on the victim’s life rather than on the violent circumstances that led to their death. The family album methodology was especially important in this regard, because beneficiaries were able to remember those who died in 2002 not only as victims, but also as family and community members. According to CNMH, the family is a psychosocial vehicle that provides mechanisms to deal with the pain and trauma from the armed conflict. Many participants shared this philosophy and found that CNMH’s approach allowed them to communicate with their relatives, explain what they have been through, and help them mourn. Participants expressed that each member felt the project respected and valued their opinions and the lives of the loved ones portrayed in the albums. They highlighted the value of the albums as a tool to show their individual and collective memories during the burial event held at the end of the project. This also served, according to the participants, to strengthen collective organization, because memory became an instrument to tell the story of those who were killed during the massacre and the context that surrounded the massacre, as opposed to the official truth that state institutions disclosed.16 15 Living memory or memory that is alive. 16 Both the police and the army of Colombia denied their responsibility in the massacre, arguing that they could not reach the zone because of weather conditions. Seventeen years after the massacre, a court decision condemned the Photo 2 Focus group with beneficiaries victims of Bojayá (September, 2019 – Photo by, Juan Ruiz) 8 Rebuilding the social fabric and strengthening collective action. For members of the communities of Bojayá and Buenaventura, as well as for CNMH, community ownership of the initiative was key for the sustainability of the memory process. In the case of Buenaventura, both the civic strike and the process of constructing and documenting its memory leveraged the community’s capacity for collective action as a means to rebuild the social fabric. People who had become distant due to the violent conflict found that the documentary provided an opportunity to reconnect. Participants spoke of the documentary interview and filming processes, as a chance to acknowledge the positive aspects of social interaction (e.g. camaraderie and solidarity) that previously existed in Buenaventura and that had been lost because of the armed conflict. In addition, participants in the C-AME-led focus groups and interviews acknowledged that reconstructing the memory of the strike helped them to recognize their achievements in a collective process. They looked back and reflected on how the strike facilitated peaceful collective action to confront the state’s abandonment and historic exclusion. The memory reconstruction process, according to project participants, helped them to see the value of working together to preserve and reclaim local resources such as culture, economic potential, and biodiversity. As participants discussed reclaiming these shared resources, one beneficiary observed that memory and truth function like public goods. Therefore, the community itself should own the process of capturing memories of the richness and diversity of Buenaventura. Collective ownership and buy-in also served to leverage the strong social mobilization towards reconciliation in Bojayá. Interviews and focus groups with participants allowed C-AME to observe how this memory project, through family encounters that resulted in family visual albums, contributed to community engagement and strengthened collective action toward memory and reconciliation. This is something C-AME cannot fully attribute to the project, as it is also a testament to the strength of the social organizations that for several years have been working collaboratively to demand proper burials for lost loved ones. Two organizations supported the production of family albums in Bojayá; UNDP financed logistics for family gatherings and PAR, through an agreement with CNMH, helped design and print the family albums. Families drew on the expertise of CNMH in order to construct the albums together. The family gatherings began with the introduction of each attendee followed by each person recalling their ombligada: a method of traditional baptism in the Pacific regions of Colombia that is customized to the individual and thus marks the person’s life with a distinctive beginning. The families then worked together to create a family tree representing each member with a self-portrait. Each album is composed of the collected life stories of every family member, their role in the family, their likes and dislikes, and anecdotes about them. Participants were then able to reflect on the importance of the people they had lost and recognize the value of their connections and shared experiences. When the project began, the goal was to make 23 family albums, but by the end of the process additional community members were attending the family gatherings and the project was able to produce 40 family albums. Both participants and CNMH highlighted the benefits of having local facilitators leading the family gatherings. As members of the civic organization Comité por los Derechos de las Víctimas de Bojayá17 (the Committee), these facilitators are socially accepted and respected, which allowed them to create a strong connection with the families that participated in the gatherings. state for inaction and omission in the duty of protecting its citizens and the forced displacements that followed. The Administrative Court of Chocó supported its decision with several documents, including Alertas tempranas (early warning alerts) from the Ombudsman Office and the UN, which showed that despite many warnings there was no reaction from the armed forces to confront the armed groups that were entering the region, leading to the events of the massacre, a continuous claim from the victims that was not taken into account by the state. 17 Committee for the Rights of Victims of Bojayá. 9 The family gatherings were large, some including as many as eighty people. During these meetings, many families reunited with friends and relatives they had not seen since their forced displacement. These were moments of joy and of grief, as painful memories returned after years of suppression. The families pieced together fragmented memories, and many discovered memories they had forgotten or not known. As part of the healing process, many of those who were unable to see the deceased before they died wrote to the person and communicated how they felt, which allowed them to reconnect with those who had perished. Participants from Bojayá also mentioned that seeking truth and reviewing the events of the massacre also helped address the stigmatization and lack of trust within the community of Bojayá. One participant said that after May 2002, fear and distrust were common in the municipality and many thought their neighbors and other persons of the community were members of the FARC guerrilla or other armed groups. Official institutions and family gatherings reinforced the Bojayá residents’ view. Although rebuilding trust was not an objective of the project, its activities attempted to address the sense of distrust in two different ways. First, the gatherings and coexistence in everyday life helped community members regain trust in each other; and second, individual and collective memories proved that most people living in the community were not members of armed groups and were victims, rather than perpetrators, of the conflict. One of the words participants and implementers in Bojayá used most in conversations about the Historias de vida project was “empathy.” The community expressed that empathy was very important in the family gatherings because it allowed the whole group to feel and experience the pain other members suffered. Participants said they developed mechanisms to confront this pain with help from CNMH’s methodologies. These joint healing processes were important successes of the psychosocial approach of the project and developed community members’ skills to help those that were most affected by the remembering of their relatives. Some stated that this empowered and strengthened the community and made them remember that Bojayá is one great family, showing them their resilience and capacity to overcome these situations as a collective. Acknowledging cultural practices following guidelines for inclusion and intergenerational interaction. The armed conflict prevented many Afro-Colombian communities from carrying out practices and rituals that are important to their culture. The minimization of cultural practices persists in different forms in both Bojayá and Buenaventura. In Bojayá, days after the massacre, armed groups did not allow the proper and dignified burial of those who died in the Bellavista church, which went against the local burial and mourning practices. This event, mentioned by the participants in focus groups and interviews, left the community with unfinished burial practices and denied them closure. Thus, according the participants and the implementer, one of the most relevant project achievements was the integration of the exhumation process into the project; the community had to wait years before they could exhume victims in a way that complied with the community’s local customs. Medicina Legal and other official institutions that perform these procedures took several years to identify remains. Finally, the Office of the Attorney General of Colombia transferred the remains to official laboratories to be identified and then returned them to Bojayá in November 2019.18 During the collective burial ceremony, families displayed the albums they had made during the ritual before burying the deceased. According to the participants, this was a political exercise to restore the presence and values of those who were murdered. In addition, according to the participants, the CNMH methodology and the Committee’s experience working with the community facilitated the integration of ancestral practices into the family gatherings. 18 El Espectador (November 11, 2019) En Bojayá cierran el duelo: familiares reciben 72 cuerpos identificados de la masacre. URL: https://www.elespectador.com/colombia2020/justicia/verdad/en-bojaya-cierran-el-duelo-familiares-reciben-72- cuerpos-identificados-de-la-masacre-articulo-890564. 10 Implementers acknowledged practices like alabaos and romances,19 as well as chants like gualíes and chigualos, which are essential for the burials of children and for planning collective funerals. The sabedores mayores,20 important figures in these Afro-Colombian communities, were included in the implementation process. This strategy proved to be valuable for building trust in the project and among members that participated in the gatherings. Participants noted that the implementers valued and respected the ancestral heritage of the community. Inclusion of Afro-Colombian cultural practices was a project achievement in Buenaventura as well. The documentary’s main purpose was to depict the origin of the civic strike and recognize the achievements of communities in this city. Because of the large number of Afro-Colombian communities in the urban and rural areas of Buenaventura, the documentary also honors their practices and beliefs through memory reconstruction processes using the voices of children, young women, and men. Meetings of community members to memorialize and document stories of the strike included a range of arts and cultural forms such as songs, dances, and rituals. Young organizers of the memory reconstruction events held workshops in three key locations of the civic strike, guiding participants in activities that helped them rediscover the way they mobilized during the strike and collecting testimonies and life stories. The producers of the documentary also expected to portray the intergenerational encounters that took place during the strike. The inclusion of cultural practices was relevant, because meetings in these spaces allowed many groups to share their experiences of solidarity and resistance as a collective; to include different voices and cultures which allowed them to make decisions collectively; and to expose persistent and structural forms of racism and discrimination (for the latter, see challenges sections below). PAR and CNMH recognize the Afro-Colombian community’s contribution to this process through memory reconstruction and documentation of important local histories of resistance, and the role of collective action in defending individual and community rights. Likewise, CNMH sees memory activities as a way for victimized groups to have tools to problematize and transform their “victim” categorization.21 C-AME's analysis led the team to conclude that CNMH’s memory activities allow victimized groups to re￾appropriate cultural practices, particularly those that were associated with organizing politically, socially, and economically. Challenges Limited capacity to address psychological distress experienced by the beneficiaries in the family gatherings. If administered poorly or out of context, memory interventions can be potentially harmful to individuals, groups, and communities that have experienced the violence of the armed conflict, such as those in Bojayá. When memory processes expose past wounds, participants may experience trauma, anger, frustration, and other harmful feelings that—if not treated properly—can leave an individual worse-off emotionally than when the process began. Although the community-based approach helped for managing these emotional situations, a significant amount of time during the family gatherings was dedicated to controlling and containing these emotions, reducing the time left to reconstruct the life stories of the victims. In this 19 Traditional chants with a nostalgic harmony that is sad, yet evokes pain and hope at the same time. Conto, J. (April 19, 2019). Los alabaos: una impronta contra el olvido. Revista Arcadia. URL: https://www.revistaarcadia.com/musica/articulo/alabaos-del-pacifico-musica-tradicional-de-colombia/69164. 20 Spiritual guides and guardians of cultural, medicinal, and other ancestral practices of the Afro-Colombian groups. 21 CNMH and other organizations that work with communities affected by the armed conflict have amply discussed the term “victim”. Some may identify themselves as “survivors” and other categories, depending on their specific claims, context, and events that happened in their communities. Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica y University of British Columbia. (2013). Recordar y narrar el conflicto. Herramientas para reconstruir la memoria histórica. Bogotá: CNMH. 11 regard, participants of the project expressed the need for more psychological and psychosocial support before, during, and after the gatherings, not only to address trauma that arose during the gatherings, but also to monitor certain individuals’ emotional and mental health after the process ends. Additionally, the community and the participants’ motivation, history of memory work, and demands for recognition kept the process going. As communities that have deep and ancestral wounds related not only to more recent violent events, but also to historic marginalization and slavery, the participation of Afro￾Colombian communities is an achievement for PAR’s memory projects. Their distrust in the state is related to these wounds, which resurface when state institutions enact policies that leave municipalities like Bojayá or Buenaventura forgotten, or when armed conflict strikes, further affecting their collective identity. It is not accurate to conclude that their engagement in these processes means those structural issues were resolved, but they are a step towards the strengthening and reweaving of social fabric in Afro-Colombian communities. Challenges with the production company for the Memorias project. There were issues with the original documentary production company selected in Buenaventura, whose team’s views were different from those of the project participants. According to members of Sueños Reales, the producer wanted to exclude or minimize the contributions from the community’s traditional and cultural practices (e.g. funeral processions, songs, and religious practices) as well as the perspectives of their elders and respected artists, since they were less academic and formal. The producer attempted for six months to tune and edit voice recordings of the cantaoras—traditional singers from the community—ignoring the important role these voices play in the ancestral practices of the Afro-Colombians. The lack of understanding between the beneficiaries and the production company around the role of cultural practices ended in the termination of this contractual relationship, initiated by Sueños Reales early in the implementation. The project hired a new production company that, according to participants, respects and strives to include ancestral practices; however, this contracting decision resulted in significant implementation delays. Additionally, local leaders expressed concerns that the previous producer had not returned recorded materials back to the community and requested the assistance of PAR in this regard. This experience allowed participants to expose persistent and structural forms of racism and discrimination, regrettably on the part of the first production company. For PAR, this should raise concerns about the organizational capacity of partners to identify vendors and manage external funding. RECONCILIATION PROCESSES Achievements Strengthening community links based on dialogue and respect. Participants from Historias de vida said the family gatherings helped to bring families and the community closer together. This is a remarkable achievement considering that, early on, participants argued at the meetings rather than having constructive conversations. Through the implementation of CNMH methodologies, beneficiaries from Bojayá started using dialogue and acknowledging others as equals as a strategy to reduce inter-community conflict. Respectful recognition of the others helped reduce stigmas about members of the community. These workshops became a space to eliminate prejudices and misconceptions about the lives of massacre victims. It was also a way to stop false accusations by community members; according to participants, after May 2002, fear and distrust were so common in the municipality that many thought their neighbors and other community members were part of the FARC or other armed groups. For participants of the Memorias project, the dialogues associated with the documentary helped them to remember the bonds of solidarity the conflict had damaged. One beneficiary mentioned that during project implementation the practice of uramba, which is a form of collective action and labor from Afro-Colombian 12 communities22, emerged as a significant form of interaction among participants. Building upon this social practice, uramba could contribute to reconciliation processes. According to beneficiaries from Buenaventura, the civic strike was an opportunity for civilians to have a dialogue with the government on their own terms. During the meetings, everyone sat in a circle so that they could look in each other’s eyes and work out an agreement that aids reconciliation. Furthermore, the workshops associated with producing the documentary led to recognition of the struggles of different social groups and became spaces for sharing experiences of collective resistance. Challenges Partial methodological transfer and adaptation of PAR’s Reconciliation Approach. CNMH is a recognized state entity with expert knowledge in memory reconstruction in communities affected by the armed conflict in Colombia. Through the different interviews and focus groups led by C-AME, it was evident that the methodologies used in the workshops were those from the CNMH, like Mis mejores dibujos and other activities implemented during the gatherings. Despite the existence of methodological tools to deal with memory reconstruction in PAR’s Reconciliation Approach23, its methodologies did not appear in any of the narratives gathered and participants did not mention being part of these workshops. The implementer reported that there was not a clear strategy to integrate PAR’s methodologies with those used by CNMH, and CNMH expressed that PAR intended to transfer the Reconciliation Approach in the past year, but by the time implementation began, only one meeting had taken place. However, PAR argues that while the methodology was transferred to the implementer, it is the decision of the implementing partner whether to implement the Reconciliation Approach tools with beneficiaries. Difficulties integrating methodologies may have affected the participants’ understanding of the insertion of “memory” in the processes of a reconciliation program. The Reconciliation Approach seeks to transform understandings, attitudes and behaviors through changes in empowerment, respect, trust and dialogue. The lack of methodological integration with the memory activities affects the capacity of the program to produce such transformations. While the memory processes become important tools to coming to terms with the past, they still have limited capacity to transform “understandings, attitudes, and behaviors that have been forged by armed conflict,” per PAR’s definition of reconciliation. Persistent distrust in government. Although memory processes have contributed to feelings of empowerment and vindication in Bojayá and Buenaventura, the communities’ lack of trust in the state remains an obstacle to the reconciliation process, as trust is one of the drivers of reconciliation according to PAR. This is a shared characteristic among the two memory processes, and it is especially significant because illegal armed groups remained active, even after the peace agreement. In this context, participants said the memory reconstruction initiatives had a difficult beginning, as many persons from the community were uninterested in the gatherings because they neither trusted nor felt supported by official institutions. On one occasion, when the working groups arrived in the communities, the residents thought that they were members of an armed group “identifying” community members to recruit, instead of staff from the Center targeting participants to form part of the album project. 22 Uramba is a word from the South Pacific region of Colombia which means that all people work together to develop a community activity. 23 DecidoSer is one of the two components of the psychosocial support strategy (Reconciliation Approach from PAR, the other one is the Gender and Inclusion Strategy. For additional details, see http://www.acdivoca.org.co/decidoser/. 13 Along with the historical lack of trust of communities in the state, a change in the Center’s leadership further increased this problem. After the new national government took office in August 2018, CNMH made important adjustments and replaced their director, a selection process that took several months. Upon arrival of the new director, conflicting views between the new Center’s leadership and the victims’ organizations about the meaning and history of the armed conflict resulted in difficulties for the implementation of the PAR-CNMH agreement. Personnel from the CNMH expressed concern regarding administrative uncertainty during the transition period, and were unsure of what priorities the new head of the Center would emphasize. In a wider context, the participants in the Buenaventura memory reconstruction activity perceived this policy climate surrounding the project as a challenge to it. According to participants from Buenaventura, the change in political leadership in Colombia meant less support from the central government for memory and reconciliation processes in the port city. This concerned the beneficiaries in Buenaventura, as this change occurred during a period of persistent violence in the city. According to CNMH, the increased violence made citizens wary of speaking out and participating in activities associated with memory and reconciliation. These institutional changes also caused a series of operational challenges. Many of the personnel from CNMH working on the family gatherings in Bojayá could not get their contracts renewed on time, causing delays in project activities and undermining the community’s confidence in the project, and thus in CNMH. The participants also noted that CNMH could not be present at all the workshops. CNMH’s inconsistent attendance, mainly due to administrative backlogs, made it difficult for them to provide expert knowledge and observe the workshops. While PAR and CNMH staff are not responsible for the government’s transition, the election and subsequent changes in the administration exacerbated trust issues between the community and public institutions, including CNMH. The relationship between the communities affected by the armed conflict, and public institutions are vital for an enduring reconciliation process amidst the ongoing conflicts in regions like Bojayá and Buenaventura. Residents of Buenaventura believe the GOC should be an active participant in reconciliation processes. However, they believe the GOC sees transitional justice mechanisms and institutions the peace agreements created, such as the Truth Commission, as focusing on coexistence rather than reconciliation. Reconciliation, according to PAR’s approach, involves building trust and unity among members of the community, and between the community and the State. The limited capacity of the State to provide public goods in places such as Bojayá and Buenaventura has therefore contributed to the distrust between the community and state agents. If the project aims to rebuild trust, while acknowledging the roles government agents have played in the past, the state should assume an active role in the reconciliation process, and not merely act as an administrator in the process. PAR can contribute to rebuilding state-community relations by actively implementing activities from the Reconciliation Approach and continue encouraging each party to reflect upon their role in the reconciliation process. SUSTAINABILITY The memory initiatives led by the CNMH in Bojayá and Buenaventura have common positive aspects and challenges regarding sustainability. The first upside, in both initiatives, is how social ownership has been achieved inside the communities that have worked during the implementation. The memory processes are seen by the communities not as an external approach of the implementer, but as an internal process of Bojayá and Buenaventura. These views became a mechanism for building resilience within the communities as well as strategies to strengthen the initiatives’ staying power. A second upside is found in that both the documentary and the albums became an instrument that will serve the socialization of the memory processes the communities developed during the implementation. They will not only show different community learnings but will also serve as a way to integrate the acknowledgment of the past the communities of Bojayá and Buenaventura had to endure. 14 As for the downsides that affect sustainability, there was a partial methodological transfer found in both projects in which the Reconciliation Approach was not fully integrated into the initiatives, as expressed in the reconciliation section of this analysis. Although empowerment, dialogue, and respect are key elements of the reconciliation as led by PAR, and these are present in the memory initiatives (but not as a result of PAR’s Reconciliation Approach), the projects did not, ultimately, include trust-building activities. This limits the projects’ capacity to continue building trust and address the issue of their lack of trust in state institutions found in their narratives. The partner organization CNMH learned important lessons about the practicality of creating memory activities at the national level that have to be carried out by territorial (sub-national or regional) authorities. At times there were disconnects between the agenda and vision of the national-level organizations working on peace and reconciliation, and the priorities and realities of work in disparate regions, particularly those experiencing ongoing or re-emerging violent conflict. As long as these violent conditions remain, communities will find it more challenging to carry out memory initiatives in their municipalities. F. ANDI: INCLUSIVE LINKAGES INVOLVING VULNERABLE PRODUCERS One of the tenets of PAR’s TOC is the need to improve economic opportunities for individuals and communities as an intermediate goal to further improve Colombians’ willingness to participate in the reconciliation process. In support of this objective, the agreement between PAR and F. ANDI seeks to promote transformative alliances that boost economic and social opportunities for vulnerable individuals and communities that face economic hardship. Seeking to encourage attitudinal and behavioral change, the two key strategies of the agreement between PAR and F. ANDI are (1) increase awareness about the key role that the private sector plays in reconciliation processes (i.e. corporate volunteering program Vamos Colombia) and (2) local initiatives of reconciliation through inclusive linkages and inclusive employment. For this developmental evaluation, C-AME has focused its attention on F. ANDI’s inclusive linkages activities as only these projects fit the selection criteria in terms of scope, status, and location (see evaluation scope section). To this end, C-AME conducted a desk analysis and fieldwork of four inclusive linkage activities in three locations: Bogotá-Usme, Bojayá, and San Carlos. First, we will provide a brief description of what inclusive linkages entail, then a description of each initiative, followed by identification of achievements and challenges per problem area (inclusive linkages), reconciliation processes, gender and sustainability. The main purpose behind inclusive market linkage is to secure private sector demand for products from vulnerable producers (mostly agricultural) and, through these linkages, improve the livelihoods of producer communities by increasing their income (see Figure 3). Through the implementation of the strategies in each community, these linkages seek to contribute to an increase in productivity, improvement of produce quality standards, enhanced organizational capacity, and reduction of poverty among participants as measured by the Multidimensional Poverty Index. According to F. ANDI,24 this process is possible when a secured commercial relationship exists between a buyer and a community after completing five stages: 1. Pre-feasibility 2. Feasibility 3. Preparation 4. Execution 24 Fundación ANDI. (2017). Hub de Alianzas para la Competitividad Inclusiva. Manual Operativo de Encadenamientos Inclusivos. 15 5. Closure The four projects evaluated are at different stages within this model; two projects in Usme had already closed, while the projects in Bojayá and San Carlos are at the feasibility stage. Figure 3: Inclusive Linkage for Plantain Producers in Bojayá25 According to the inclusive linkage methodology, in order to connect the supply (vulnerable producers) and demand (buyers) sides of the chain, the buyer must first express interest in purchasing a specific product from groups of vulnerable producers. F. ANDI leads the process to identify potential producers in a specific territory, and in the pre-feasibility stage, it identifies local organizations that have the potential to respond to the demand. It conducts an assessment to identify organizational, logistic, commercial, technical, environmental, and social strengths and weaknesses. In the feasibility stage, F. ANDI uses this information to determine which organization(s) is best suited to respond to the demand. Once F. ANDI identifies the organizations, they start working with them by providing technical support in agricultural practices, organizational and administrative support, identification of costs, and mediation with the main buyer. During the preparation stage, the producers formalize their relationship with the buyer. The execution stage is when the delivery process begins and finally, the closing stage is when F. ANDI assesses the achievements and challenges of the process. Although Bogotá is the largest urban area in Colombia, a significant proportion of its territory is rural, including Usme. F. ANDI worked with smallholder lettuce farmers from Usme in the veredas, or rural communities, of El Destino and La Requilina, and strawberry producers from El Hato, Arrayanes and Curubital, also in Usme. F. ANDI led the implementation of the project Encadenamiento Inclusivo entre Home Burgers y productores de lechuga tudela en Usme26 (January 2017 – April 2019) with two groups of lettuce producers. In the feasibility stage, F. ANDI selected two farmer organizations identified during the pre-feasibility stage. They determined that Guiando Territorio27 and AGROSUMAR, two groups of farmers, had the potential to respond to the demand from Home Burgers, a chain of artisanal burger restaurants in Bogotá, for tudela lettuce. C-AME conducted fieldwork and discovered that AGROSUMAR had a sub-group called 25 Fundación ANDI. (2019). Encadenamiento Inclusivo Plátano –Bojayá, Chocó 26 Inclusive linkage between Home Burgers and tudela lettuce producers in Usme. 27 Guiding Territory. 16 Sembradoras de Vida.28 Results for this evaluation came from focus groups with members of Guiando Territorio and Sembradoras de Vida. F. ANDI’s other initiative in Usme engages a group of smallholder strawberry producers. The beneficiary organization is Corporación Red Mujer29 (Red Mujer), composed mostly of women who produce organic strawberries. The initiative did not start with F. ANDI as the lettuce initiative did, but began in 2015 when Red Mujer received technical assistance in strawberry production to promote the inclusion of vulnerable farmers. Before F. ANDI started working in Usme, Red Mujer entered negotiations mediated by the Secretary of Economic Development of Usme, with the restaurant chain Crepes & Waffles, to sell them organic strawberries. However, according to Crepes & Waffles, the negotiations were unsuccessful. F. ANDI therefore aimed to strengthen the commercial relationship between Red Mujer and Crepes & Waffles with this initiative. The inclusive linkage model implemented by F. ANDI in Usme focused on strengthening the primary link of the business value chain, in which the production, technology, classification, crop storage, and delivery of the primary product according to customer requirements are key. One of the critical components of the strategy with small farmers in Usme was the commercialization of tudela lettuce—in the cases of Guiando Territorio and Sembradoras de Vida—and to strengthen the existing commercial relationship between Red Mujer and Crepes & Waffles. In February 2019, the Hub of Alliances for Inclusive Competitiveness, 30 identified the Asociación de Plataneros del Medio Atrato31 (APLAMEDA) as a producer partner to implement an inclusive linkage. It is important to highlight that the ACUMEN Fund (a member of the hub), was a key player in identifying APLAMEDA and leveraging resources for this linkage. The ACUMEN Fund, a stakeholder engaged in the Hub and PAR activity, had been engaged in the process since inception. The goal of this intervention is for producers (207 families) to sell their plantains to companies, restaurant chains, and wholesales at stable prices calculated by F. ANDI, through technical assistance and demand creation. The initiative with APLAMEDA is currently in its feasibility stage. The process with APLAMEDA differs from the traditional F. ANDI inclusive linkage approach. Instead of starting on the demand side, this project started with the identification of the supplier. The project identified the potential plantain production of APLAMEDA, and then mapped the demand for the product in order to develop a plan for commercialization. Currently the potential buyers are a cluster in Bogotá and they include Crepes & Waffles, Viveagro, Drycol, Botanas S.A.S, and Súper Ricas; they have already received produce samples. Another potential cluster of buyers has been identified in Medellín, but samples have not been delivered there yet. This method of creating the linkage takes advantage of the long history of plantain production in Bojayá, which reduces the need to develop technical and productive conditions to produce what the buying companies need. Finally, the honey project Fortalecimiento Productivo y Comunitario de la Asociación de Apicultores Biológicos de San Carlos32 seeks to develop a stable commercial relationship between beekeepers of the collective 28 Female Planters of Life. 29 Women’s Network Corporation. 30 The Hub of Alliances for Inclusive Competitiveness is a multi-sectoral platform that seeks to improve the income of organizations of vulnerable producers by establishing linkages between vulnerable producers and buyers. The initiative is led by F. ANDI and supported by USAID through PAR, and the Swedish Embassy. 31 Association of Plantain Growers of Medio Atrato. 32 Productive and community strengthening of the association of organic beekeepers of San Carlos. The Association of Organic Beekeepers of San Carlos is known as AFRICOLMENAS. 17 known as AFRICOLMENAS, located in San Carlos, and Grupo Nutresa, a food-processing conglomerate headquartered in Medellín, Colombia. F. ANDI (and CRC, previous implementing partner with AFRICOLMENAS-see CRC analysis section) expect that the producers’ quality of life will improve through the development of a stable and fair commercial relationship. The project is currently in its feasibility stage. ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREA: INCLUSIVE LINKAGES Achievements Crosscutting technical assistance led to improved capacity to manage agricultural production. In the lettuce and strawberry projects, producers highlight that the relevant intervention’s technical assistance allowed them to improve their capacity to manage crops. The technical assistance to the beekeeper project focuses on identification of production costs in order to reduce them (technical assistance for beekeeping was provided through a CRC-led project). In the case of the lettuce project, both F. ANDI and beneficiaries describe the process of learning about tudela lettuce crops33 as trial and error because of their lack of knowledge of the product and the quality standards the buyer required. Beneficiaries emphasized that because of the technical trainings led by agricultural technicians from F. ANDI, they acquired new knowledge to improve cultivation practices, which led to enhanced planting, sowing, and harvesting, and thereby increased overall productivity. Beneficiaries indicated that although many of them had farming experience, the project’s training and technical assistance contributed to enhancing the output and quality of the produce, in the cases of lettuce and strawberries. Examples of enhanced agricultural practices include stagger planting (i.e. Sembradoras de Vida), good agricultural practices (GAP) (i.e. Sembradoras de Vida, Guiando Territorio, and Red Mujer), and introduction of novel crops (i.e. a specific breed of lettuce). The case of AFRICOLMENAS is somewhat different because the technical assistance for honey production took place under a CRC project. AFRICOLMENAS received support from F. ANDI and CRC to improve their productive, organizational, and administrative processes. After receiving technical assistance for beekeeping, the producers sought to expand their business and understood that the next critical steps were to calculate production costs and set competitive prices. F. ANDI provided technical assistance to producers to help study production costs by teaching them to identify which aspects of the production process will increase prices, as well as ways to reduce them (e.g. based on evidence that packing for wholesale is less expensive than individual bottles for retail). Enhanced logistics for better quality and lower costs. Following the harvest, participants from the lettuce project acknowledged improvements in post-harvesting due to the technical expertise the F. ANDI project provided. Beneficiaries and F. ANDI reported enhanced capacity to sort, clean, and pack the lettuce, allowing them to meet Home Burgers’ quality standards and reduce the number of rejected deliveries. However, producers emphasized that Home Burgers, and due to mediation by F. ANDI, made the delivering process more flexible by allowing producers from Sembradoras de Vida to package their deliveries in groups of lettuce wrapped in plastic bags instead of plastic crates, the latter being their preferred standard. As part of the technical support, F. ANDI trained producers of Red Mujer in proper fruit collection, emphasizing care, cleanliness, and packaging. Red Mujer members assert that they possess the knowledge to organize pick-up schedules and deliver the produce to the Crepes & Waffles collection center following proper procedures. In the case of APLAMEDA, the companies that received plantain samples provided technical input to producers, which allowed them to improve the packaging for long distance deliveries, according to the 33 See more details in the project analysis introduction section in Annex D. 18 buyer’s standards. F. ANDI and APLAMEDA stated that the better packaging and higher quality would allow the association to be more competitive and have a higher probability of signing commercial agreements with the buyers. Identification (and in some cases consolidation) of commercial partnerships. Honey producers identified a potential wholesale buyer, while plantain producers are in the process of identifying a cluster of buyers in large marketplaces like Bogotá and Medellín. In Usme, the inclusive linkages projects created two commercial relationships between restaurant chains and smallholder vulnerable producers. According to F. ANDI and producers, the implementation of the inclusive linkages increased income for producers from Usme. Income increase for lettuce producers resulted from Home Burgers establishing a fixed amount of product to buy from lettuce farmers, while strawberry producers increased earnings by increasing the volume of produce sold to Crepes & Waffles. According to F. ANDI, AFRICOLMENAS’ business model currently focuses on two types of customers: local buyers and sporadic buyers from other regions. 34 F. ANDI also highlighted the importance of identifying large-scale buyers, and thus the significance of major company Nutresa’s willingness to engage in a project of this type and their assurance to the producers that this could benefit them, because they will have stable buyers for their honey. Nutresa staff confirm their interest in engaging in this relationship with AFRICOLMENAS, despite difficulties negotiating prices (see details in the AFRICOLMENAS project analysis, Annex D). APLAMEDA and F. ANDI’s interests converge most in the plantain commercialization process. Both have pointed this out as the greatest achievement of the whole process. The Association of producers was enthusiastic about a series of deliveries of plantain samples they sent to Bogotá. One of the buyers, Crepes & Waffles, provided positive feedback about the sample in terms of quality, but required an agreement with a company that can ripen the plantain in Bogotá. By the end of August 2019, APLAMEDA sent a second one-ton sample of plantains, sponsored by ACUMEN (as had been the case with the first sample), to three major buyers, including Crepes & Waffles. After the delivery, F. ANDI procured a company to ripen the plantain and delivered the product according to the company’s needs. Interest from these buyers represents a positive development for the plantain producers, who hope to develop a stable commercial relationship with more, large-scale buyers (see Figure 3 above). According to producers from APLAMEDA, price calculation by F. ANDI is an element that worked well in the structure of inclusive linkages, and in future commercial agreements it would be essential to maintain (and update, if necessary) the price calculated by F. ANDI. Members of the producer group Sembradoras de Vida state that after multiple attempts to establish a commercial relationship, it was a visit from one of Home Burgers’ partners that encouraged the buyer to expand the producer’s quota. Because of the stabilization of the commercial relationship with Home Burgers, lettuce producers reported an increase in revenue. F. ANDI’s social indicators about project beneficiaries report that there is a positive perception of the income increase derived from the project, as 100% of households (compared to a baseline of 13%) perceived an improvement in their livelihoods over the last year, while 75% of households (compared to baseline of 23%) believe their income is sufficient to cover living expenses.35 On the other hand, technical assistance provided by Crepes & Waffles and F. ANDI increased productivity and quality of strawberries produced by Red Mujer. According to F. ANDI, Red Mujer members overall increased their income by 75%. Nevertheless, it is important to note that 34 Fundación ANDI. (n.a). Informe de Factibilidad. Proyecto: Miel Suroriente de Antioquia. 35 Fundación ANDI. (2019). Ficha de Cierre Proyecto de encadenamiento inclusivo entre Home Burgers y productores de lechuga tudela. 19 members of Red Mujer have different plot sizes and their production levels vary, therefore, the producers’ incomes vary according to how many strawberries they produce. Organizational improvements. One of the components of the Hub methodology for inclusive linkages is the improvement of the organizational capacity of vulnerable producers. In the case of lettuce producers, one of the main organizational achievements was the formalization of Guiando Territorio, supported by the alliance between F. ANDI and Javeriana University. On the other hand, Sembradoras de Vida does not exist as a formal organization, but its members have identified technical and administrative needs during the project’s implementation that have led some of the members to consider becoming a formal organization. F. ANDI reported that Red Mujer ended the inclusive linkage process with a defined organizational structure, financial procedures, operations manual, and an organizational chart. Producers suggest they advanced in the distribution of tasks during the harvesting and post-harvesting processes. Challenges Implications of adapting new crops among vulnerable producers. F. ANDI’s business model begins with identifying the demand of a specific company (except in Bojayá). The success of an agribusiness firm depends upon being able to yield quality products in sufficient quantity and at a specific quality standard. In the case of the lettuce project, Home Burgers determined the specific type of lettuce they would demand (a variety called tudela), and the quality standards of it. In order to meet Home Burgers’ standards, producers needed to acquire technical knowledge of an unfamiliar product. During the learning process, multiple losses occurred until producers learned the agricultural practices. Although producers had years of experience growing vegetables, tudela lettuce was a crop completely unknown in the region and quite different from the lettuce they were used to growing. Their lack of knowledge of the production process, as well as the type of demand they were facing became obstacles during the implementation, but were later surpassed, and turned into agricultural lessons. However, in terms of empowerment (as one of the reconciliation drivers), the lack of knowledge about the crop limited the capacity of producers to efficiently respond to critical moments, such as adverse weather conditions, pest management, and adaptation of irrigation systems. Here, there is a potential contradiction between the need to innovate the types of crops these producers could provide, versus the need to improve the community’s agricultural aptitude. Although F. ANDI assessed productive and organizational capacities of the groups of producers in Usme, where they acknowledged pre-existing capacities, it is important to consider previous knowledge from producers about agricultural practices and their territory, in order to continue improving farmers’ levels of empowerment through economic inclusion. Photo 3 Interview with beneficiary from Red Mujer (September, 2019 – Photo taken by Gina Rico) 20 Lack of alternative markets and marketing capacities. Challenges of these initiatives stem from the model implemented by F. ANDI in which there is a focus on the development of a commercial relationship with one wholesale buyer (i.e. Nutresa) or large restaurant chains (i.e. Crepes & Waffles and Home Burgers) without considering alternative buyers in local markets. This led to cases of overspecialization in certain crops, like the lettuce cases in Usme, and risky focus on one buyer, like in the strawberries linkage where Red Mujer sells 90% of its production to Crepes & Wafflers, with the remaining 10% being sold in the local market. This situation reflects the lack of alternative markets and may affect the capacity of the producers to develop their full economic and social potential. Further analysis indicated that smallholder vulnerable farmers have potential access to local markets that, although smaller, reduce transportation costs, reduce environmental impacts, and strengthen community linkages (see National Policy for Peasant, Family, and Community Agriculture36). In these implementation contexts, producers report they do not feel they have the capacity to negotiate agreements directly and in equal conditions with buyers. For instance, during a price re-negotiation, Red Mujer and Crepes & Waffles were unable to come to an agreement that would allow the organization to expand its production while maintaining the price the buyer had accepted. Here it is important to note that Crepes & Waffles reports they are paying the organization a price higher than the market value. In the case of AFRICOLMENAS, F. ANDI and Nutresa report that there have been difficulties in setting a price per kilo of honey that is appropriate for both the producers and the buyer. This has become an obstacle to establishing a commercial relationship between AFRICOLMENAS and Nutresa (see Annex D￾AFRICOLMENAS case). In these cases, C-AME concluded that the agreed sale price presents a latent risk in that it relies on the buyers’ internal purchasing policies, which directly affect the commercial relationships. One of the main challenges for the future of these organizations is searching for alternative markets and customers that allow them to expand their production capacity and market shares. Under the inclusive linkages model, buyers conveyed the importance of working collaboratively with producers. Crepes & Waffles stated that the private sector has a critical role to play in post-conflict reconciliation. They have the opportunity to work with vulnerable farmers, especially with victims from the armed conflict, which helps create jobs and builds sustainable livelihoods. On the other hand, Nutresa’s strategy is to work with communities to implement a model of sustainable capacity building. These approaches suggest important changes in the interactions between vulnerable communities and private entities. For the buyers, the inclusive linkages that F. ANDI is supporting contribute to increase awareness and maintain an open dialogue about the need to connect the private sector with vulnerable producers. The companies have adjusted their purchasing processes to adapt to the conditions of smallholder vulnerable farmers, and have worked closely and patiently with the producers under this collaborative effort. However, there is a lag in the empowerment level of farmers when they have to face negotiations with the large-scale buyers. Socio-economic conditions limiting implementing agents’ expectations. Organizations benefiting from F. ANDI’s projects are small and do not have substantial performance, organizational, and administrative capacity. They had trouble identifying and analyzing critical points in their production process, which hindered their ability to find key strategies to improve their rural businesses. Thus, there is limited autonomy of the farmers in the process, since they are not yet fully prepared to respond to the standards of the large company buying from them and have to rely on F. ANDI for the mediation process (see Annex D, F. ANDI cases). Despite these conditions, F. ANDI emphasized the need to transform the mindsets of small and vulnerable producers from small-scale farmers into entrepreneurs and rural businesspeople. According to the narratives delivered by F. ANDI to producers, the producer must focus on increasing 36 Resolution number 464, 2017 from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. 21 their entrepreneurial capacity to become capable of carrying out their own projects. Nevertheless, producers still face many obstacles at the socio-economic level in their rural territories. There are still many obstacles in rural areas that the interventions have not been resolved, inhibiting reconciliation processes and preventing farmers becoming agricultural entrepreneurs. The inclusive linkage model expects that small/vulnerable producers will become independent agricultural entrepreneurs, even though there are still systemic barriers to their becoming businesspeople. Barriers include high levels of poverty, geographic isolation, insufficient infrastructure, lack of knowledge about the financial system and ways to access credit, low borrowing capacity, low rates of banking penetration, low credit scores, poor entrepreneurial skills, limited access to new technologies, insufficient commercial capacities, and aging farmers. These systemic barriers not only represent an obstacle to improving productive capacities among farmers, but also remain obstacles for the strengthening of the empowerment driver, a core component of the reconciliation effort led by PAR. Lack of common ground to reach a commercial agreement. According to F. ANDI and Nutresa, there are difficulties establishing an agreement between the buyer and the producers, one of them being setting a price per kilo of honey that was adequate for both. For Nutresa, the support from F. ANDI to identify the production costs has been significant, however, the price variations during the identification of production costs keeps the uncertainty about prices. For F. ANDI, members from the organization resist lowering their costs, because producers expect to highlight the non-economic benefits of their honey, such as the intangible value of the history and conservation practices that go into creating a product of this quality. The producers are incorporating these non-economic values in their price, which makes it higher than Nutresa is willing to pay. According to F. ANDI, multiple cooperating entities (governmental, foreign, and non-governmental) that had worked with members of AFRICOLMENAS due to their conditions as victims of the armed conflict, focused on environmental education around beekeeping. According to producers, this education and contextualization of beekeeping is a positive feature of the technical assistance, but the resulting value placed on the honey by the producers has translated to an obstacle to setting competitive prices, according to F. ANDI. There is no right or wrong here, the fact is that there are different views regarding the features that add value to a product and how that should translate to price. For F. ANDI, it is clear that the wholesale structure proposed in the negotiation between AFRICOLMENAS and Nutresa is a means for business expansion and to increase producers’ income. For producers, there are other values attached to their honey and products, like the environmental conservation practices and community resilience. With this in mind, producers are looking for alternative markets that would pay their price per bottle, which is set taking into account the history of the community, and markets for the provision of services around beekeeping (e.g. ecotourism). RECONCILIATION PROCESSES Achievements Trust and respect derived from engaging in teamwork. Producers from both projects in Usme, interviewed by C-AME, indicated that the engagement in teamwork activities in tudela lettuce and strawberry production led to improvements in their capacity to trust in their peers. The groups and their members have developed mutual accountability that allows the buyers to have trust in the products delivered and in the producers themselves. Trust emerged from teamwork efforts. Another significant organizational achievement from the work between the organizations of producers and F. ANDI is equitable distribution of activities and earnings among members of each organization. During the implementation period, 22 members of the organizations acknowledged that there should be an equitable distribution of roles within the production process. Despite the internal organizational differences in terms of age, expectations, and risk taking, and among organizations, associates indicated that each person receives the earnings from the sale of the lettuce proportionally to the amount of work they put into it. Challenges Partial methodological transfer and adaptation of the Reconciliation Approach. Despite improvements in participant’s trust, only one producer of Guiando Territorio reported he attended a DecidoSer workshop in a location different from the implementation site. This participant reports positive results from participating in the activity, however, his attendance was not connected to the activities under the PAR￾F. ANDI alliance. Producers of Sembradoras de Vida and Red Mujer reported they did not participate in any activity that resembles reconciliation. C-AME did not find evidence of the transfer of PAR Reconciliation Approach to F. ANDI’s beneficiaries, unless they participated in other PAR-funded initiative (i.e. AFRICOLMENAS and APLAMEDA). F. ANDI indicated that under the framework of the inclusive linkage strategy, they developed the methodology called “Plan de Vida.”37 Plan de Vida is the personal development component of the inclusive linkage methodology that encourages participants to develop a life plan for themselves as individuals and members of a family and a business. According to F. ANDI, “…it is an educational process that seeks to generate and develop knowledge and skills to improve the level and quality of life, releasing their [participants’] full potential, and giving them the opportunity to become agents of their own personal, business, and community development.”38 However, project participants interviewed did not recognize the term or activities that resemble the implementation of Plan de Vida activities as such. Similar to the CNMH case, in this regard, PAR suggested that it is the decision of the implementing partner whether or not they implement Reconciliation Approach workshops with their project beneficiaries. It is interesting to note that beneficiaries of inclusive linkages implemented by F. ANDI, specifically members of Red Mujer, were not aware that this initiative was related to PAR and ACDI/VOCA, nor that the main donor was USAID, nor that this was part of a broader reconciliation initiative. Regardless of the synergies that could exist between Plan de Vida and the Reconciliation Approach from PAR, F. ANDI warned of the difficulties of combining the two approaches. In the end, there is no evidence of the social and reconciliation support strategies’ implementation among all the project participants. For instance, there is a specific need among members of Sembradoras de Vida to improve intra-community dialogue. This will contribute to their capacity to define shared goals and expectations for the organization. There are significant improvements on the production aspects of the project, but the lack of any activities from the Reconciliation Approach or DecidoSer in the implementation process and the lack of knowledge about the overarching program limit the capacity for these participants to improve their reconciliation abilities. The C-AME team noted that participants in the focus group with Red Mujer believed that the visit of high￾level Colombia and U.S. Government officials in September 2019 created tension with their neighbors because it raised expectations about potential funding that would come for Red Mujer from the U.S. and Colombian governments. Far beyond the security measures’ constraints, beneficiaries stated that the community excluded them for their perceived wealth. The reconciliation approach that ACDI/VOCA designed for PAR would be suitable to strengthen social ties in cases like this, and this negative unintended consequence should be considered in the implementation of future economic development reconciliation activities. 37 Life Plan. 38 Fundación ANDI. (N/A). Hub de Alianzas para la Competitividad Inclusiva-Plan de vida. Manual del facilitador. 23 GENDER ISSUES Achievements Productive alliances promoted gender inclusion. The productive alliances F. ANDI supports have afforded women beneficiaries the opportunity to increase their income, representing greater economic empowerment and access to social rights that have historically been limited. On the AFRICOLMENAS and plantain projects, F. ANDI has taken advantage of beneficiary communities’ existing capacities built in previous PAR￾funded implementations, including the integration of men and women in productive activities and their awareness of gender topics. The first phase of the project between PAR and APLAMEDA, before their alliance with F. ANDI, created greater awareness of the historic inequality between men and women, and promoted recognition of LGBTI individuals. Previous work between CRC and AFRICOLMENAS led to improved understanding of the important role women play in producing and selling honey. In the lettuce inclusive linkages, F. ANDI promotes using home gardens to create opportunities for women to increase their income. The cultivation activities promoted female leadership, which counteracted the women’s perceived lack of credibility in economic areas and in local organizations, and created a unity of action within the organization. In the case of strawberries, F. ANDI helped consolidate women beneficiaries’ organizational processes, and in this way, contributed to their empowerment. Challenges Partial methodological transfer and adaptation of the Reconciliation Approach-Gender and Social Inclusion. While F. ANDI has created more economic opportunities for women, beneficiary narratives indicated a need for more consistent application of the Gender and Social Inclusion Strategy (GSI). Despite improvements, the perceptions, stereotypes, and prejudices against women and LGBTI people perpetuate gender inequality and discrimination against those with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. Although C-AME is aware of F. ANDI’s autonomy regarding the implementation of the Reconciliation Approach with its beneficiaries, even in activities that address gender topics, the projects would benefit from closer accompaniment from PAR. This is an example of the beneficiaries’ narrative: —Male producer: […] the women of Río Bojayá are happy, in the sense of their work. You don’t see women cutting plantains like they do in some other places, or cutting rice. Here they are normally dedicated to their activities at home. Generally, in Bojayá those that work are the husbands. The women live relaxed lives because none of them have gone to plant rice. —Female producer: I do help! —Male producer: In other places, women go out in their boots, they go out with machetes, not here! They go around like tourists, look! [the man indicates one of the female participants of the focus group] [Laughter] Photo 4 Beneficiary from Sembradoras de Vida (October 5, 2019 - Photo by Gina Rico) 24 —Female producer: We don’t grab a machete to go harvest, but we do other things that help you do your work; for example, you all go harvest, but I get up and I cook for my husband so that he can go. That is helping. [Focus group with beneficiaries of the Plantain Inclusive Linkage. Bojayá, October 2019]. On projects like the plantain inclusive linkage, the beneficiaries are aware of the need to continue working to reduce inequality between men and women. When asked to qualify advancement in the area of gender on a scale of one to five (one being the lowest and five being the highest), the beneficiaries responded four. However, female producers indicated, that despite the work on awareness of gender equality implemented by PAR in its direct alliance with APLAMEDA, upward social mobility for women is still difficult because men’s perceptions of women participants led them to assign women a secondary role in the activities they participate in together. The beneficiaries of F. ANDI’s project in Bojayá noted the persistent idea that the tasks women manage are less demanding, and, as a result, that women are happier devoting themselves to domestic work. The quote from participant discussion above illustrates this issue. The beneficiaries’ attitudes toward women demonstrate the need to reinforce PAR’s intervention through F. ANDI, in order to promote recognition of the value of unpaid domestic work in plantain production that women carry out in addition to farm labor. Recent reflections on the economy of care have shown that activities such as cleaning and cooking, as well as the physical and emotional care of children and other family members, are a central part of producing economic value and replenishing the workforce. 39 Beneficiaries’ lack of awareness of the economic value that women provide through their labor leads to a greater lack of recognition of the central role they play in production. Even in projects with beneficiary organizations led by, or comprised mainly of women, C-AME still observed perceptions that impede the effort to reduce gender inequality. In one of the groups of lettuce producers, some male beneficiaries remarked on how easy the project is for women because, according to them, lettuce production does not interfere with the women’s normal activities: the domestic labor that satisfies the expectations of their spouses. […] To have a home garden, the woman doesn’t even need to leave her house. In rural areas, machismo is very ingrained and if they have an established household and the man is working in potato crops, or in whatever he’s working, they don’t like and don’t approve of their wives having another job or a job outside the house. So, by giving [women] this labor opportunity within their homes, it allows both to provide more for their families, with regard to economic income. [Male beneficiary of the Home Burgers – Small Producers of Lettuce project. Bogotá, October 2019]. According to beneficiaries, the home gardens are a good strategy for improving women’s income without provoking family conflict that could arise from involving women in labor activities that take them away from the domestic obligations their spouses expect. In these narratives, beneficiaries do not question the gendered roles assigned to women; rather, they defend them with arguments that supposedly justify the participation of women in the inclusive linkage. Several male beneficiaries C-AME interviewed defended the gendered division of labor by referencing biological ideas that prevent recognition, under equal conditions, of the activities that women carry out. On the lettuce project with Guiando Territorio, beneficiaries demonstrated a deeply ingrained belief that women should take on secondary, less demanding work. For some male beneficiaries, maintenance of the gardens is a minor task, and many of them (males) prefer to work in potato cultivation or in other agricultural activities, rather than switch to the supposedly less physically demanding lettuce cultivation. These stereotypes, which are based on anatomical 39 Rodríguez E., C. (2015). Economía feminista y economía del cuidado. Aportes conceptuales para el estudio de la desigualdad. Nueva Sociedad, 256. URL: https://nuso.org/media/articles/downloads/4102_1.pdf 25 differences, are obstacles to the reduction of gender inequality because they normalize different roles based on rigid perceptions of men and women. The elimination of prejudices against LGBTI people is also a challenge, especially in projects that no longer use the Gender and Social Inclusion Strategy consistently. Some beneficiaries of the plantain project feel fortunate that there are no LGBTI individuals in the project because they consider their presence to be a “scourge.” C-AME’s visit to Bojayá showed that exploring the presence of LGBTI individuals in the project or community still provokes mockery among beneficiaries, possibly because of the existence of taboos regarding discussing this topic. These situations merit PAR and F. ANDI’s full efforts to dismantle prejudices that obstruct respect and recognition for diversity. SUSTAINABILITY Negotiation capacity from producers is one aspect that jeopardizes the sustainability of the inclusive linkage process. Questions arise from this particular relationship between the organizations of producers and the buying companies: would this negotiation and price agreement have been possible without F. ANDI support, and will it continue without F. ANDI? If so, will there be a negotiation between equals in this regard? According to the beneficiaries and F. ANDI, at the moment the community does not have the skills to seek and take advantage of other market demands, and, as associates said, they still need F. ANDI to help them find new opportunities with big companies. Further negotiation and assertive communication skills are necessary to create a more level playing field for negotiations. The challenges of convincing buyers to purchase from small/vulnerable producers that F. ANDI supports could harm the initiative's sustainability since it typically focuses on one buyer. For producers from both organizations, it is necessary to diversify the demand to keep from being dependent on one partner. CORPORACIÓN RECONCILIACIÓN COLOMBIA The case of AFRICOLMENAS is somewhat different because the technical assistance for honey production took place under a CRC-led project. AFRICOLMENAS also received support from CRC to improve their productive, organizational, and administrative processes, though participants also engaged in Reconciliation Approach workshops. After receiving technical assistance for beekeeping, the producers sought to expand their business and understood that the next critical steps were to calculate production costs and set competitive prices. F. ANDI provided technical assistance to producers to help study production costs by teaching them to identify which aspects of the production process will increase prices, as well as ways to reduce them (e.g. packing for wholesale is less expensive than individual bottles for retail). F. ANDI (as observed in the previous section) is also supporting the negotiations to develop a commercial relationship between Nutresa and AFRICOLMENAS. The next section will present the evaluation results of the implementation led by CRC. The project Fortalecimiento Productivo y Comunitario de la Asociación de Apicultores Biológicos de San Carlos40 implemented with AFRICOLMENAS is one of the initiatives led by CRC under the proposal for “Innovations for Peace and Reconciliation,” funded by USAID through ACDI/VOCA, ECOPETROL, the Swedish Embassy, and the Colombian Reconciliation Fund. The goal of this initiative is to strengthen the productive, social, and reconciliation capacities of producers in AFRICOLMENAS. Specific project goals include: 1. To increase the number of hives and biological material per producer. 2. To adapt a space as a honey collection center to standardize the processes of post-harvest and storage. 40 Productive and community strengthening of the association of biological beekeepers of San Carlos. This initiative was implemented by CRC, though AFRICOLMENAS also received support from F. ANDI, as discussed above. 26 3. To provide equipment for the collection center, seeking to standardize production of honey and preserve quality standards that allow the production of other products derived from honey. 4. To plant native species, shrubs and trees for bee habitat to mitigate environmental impacts. 5. Carrying out microbiological and heavy metals analyses. 6. To provide technical assistance to producers of AFRICOLMENAS to improve honey production. 7. Implement some of the DecidoSer workshops, as well as the CRC Reconciliatory Practices methodology, seeking to improve and strengthen relations within and outside the organization. ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREA: PRODUCTIVE STRENGTHENING Achievements Improved conditions for beekeeping and honey production. One of CRC’s implementation outputs is the expansion of biological material to ten nucleus colonies—that develop into hives—per producer. This strengthened the productive capacity of 26 beneficiaries. The project also aided the construction of the honey collection and processing plant. As part of the initiative, CRC helped equip the plant with specialized machinery to standardize honey processing, improve quality standards, and enhance the production of honey derivatives. The technical assistance component of the project consisted of 115 visits to farmers to provide technical assistance on beekeeping and harvesting, which, according to producers, increased honey production. Another project activity consisted of carrying out microbiological and heavy metals analyses to identify the characteristics of the honey so that potential buyers (i.e. Nutresa) could assess whether or not the product meets their quality standards. The narratives from producers support these achievements on the productive components of the project. Beneficiaries state they learned from technical assistance on beekeeping and honey production, received additional hives, and CRC supported the construction and purchased specialized equipment for their processing plant. Among the project’s successes, beneficiaries highlight the construction of the processing plant, resulting from a collaborative effort from the producers, CRC, and the San Carlos Mayor’s Office. Beneficiaries state that due to their participation in the DecidoSer psychosocial support workshops from the project, they were able to improve their capacity to trust in each other and engage in the group dynamics. According to participants, this encouraged them to invest individual and group resources for the construction of the plant, which they highlight as a significant success. In this regard, personnel from CRC state: “It was the construction of the plant … where we saw, in practice, the result of the Reconciliation Approach. …The infrastructure resources were from the Mayor's Office, they [AFRICOLMENAS] bought the land, they all put in money, and project resources were used for adapting the plant. … They began to realize that working together, they work better, the production is better. Not only is it a plant that serves AFRICOLMENAS, it could also serve other producers who want to come.” [Interview with implementing partner, CRC. September 2019] Awareness about environmental features of beekeeping. Another feature of the project is the environmental component. The project planted 1,100 seedlings of native plant species (e.g. guamo machete and guamo bejuco) in an area of approximately four hectares to increase bee habitat and mitigate environmental impact. Beneficiaries suggested that, due to their participation in multiple (previous) interventions seeking to develop capacities for beekeeping, they started to understand the importance of conservation practices emerging from their knowledge about the world of bees: 27 “… we fell in love with the bees. So we decided to keep making this [the beekeeping initiative] larger, keep encouraging others. Bees have something really beautiful, that make you fall in love not only with them but with the conservation of our forests. Before, we used to destroy forest for cattle ranching, now we implement conservation actions.” [Focus group with beneficiaries, CRC. September 2019] The beneficiaries continuously recall in their narratives the importance of conservation practices as part of beekeeping. This increased awareness about conservation, which is a positive outcome of multiple interventions that have sought to develop beekeeping capacities, beginning with previous activities and building through the one with CRC. In fact, beneficiaries suggest that the conservation practices underlying their honey production yields higher-quality honey, which can add extra value to their product. Challenges Limited capacity to address systemic barriers of producers. Producers from AFRICOLMENAS are victims of the armed conflict and are vulnerable due to their socio-economic conditions.41 Most members are smallholder producers whose livelihoods come from farm raising fish, coffee, and/or poultry. The CRC project sought to strengthen production capacities of the organization to improve the livelihoods of producers through the sale of honey. However, as reported by beneficiaries, only a couple of the association members derive most of their income from honey production. The producers’ socio-economic vulnerability limits their ability to handle costly obstacles such as transportation of the honey from the farms to the processing plant located in the town of San Carlos. These localized barriers limit the full potential of the organization and its members, and therefore remain obstacles to fully achieving the empowerment-focused reconciliation goals of the PAR program. RECONCILIATION PROCESSES Achievements Producers acquired reconciliation skills. At multiple times during the focus group conducted by C-AME, producers highlighted the importance of participating in the Reconciliation Approach workshops. They reported the workshops contributed to improving their capacity to respect and trust one another. For them, participation was critical both as individuals and as an organization. They suggested that the productive strengthening project has been an opportunity to dignify them as individuals who suffered as victims of the armed conflict: “Producer: We have learned so many things, we have multiple projects in mind, but more importantly, this project has dignified us all. 41 According to the feasibility study from F. ANDI, 50% of the population from San Carlos live in conditions of poverty, based on the Index of Multidimensional Poverty (IMP). Photo 5 Beneficiaries from AFRICOLMENAS (Photo by AFRICOLMENAS) 28 C-AME: Why? Producer: In what way? Because it has brought us together. It has strengthened us, it has instilled values in us, and I have to tell you … more than a group, we are a family. Where we all identify each other, and we all respect each other as we are … like all of us on the lookout for what one is doing, what the other is doing, their needs, their illnesses. We are not a group, we are a family, and that has taught us through all these trainings that we have received. We have learned a lot.” (Focus group with beneficiaries from AFRICOLMENAS. San Carlos, October, 2019) Through the implementation of DecidoSer and GSI workshops, as well as the CRC Reconciliatory Practices methodology (La Reconciliación es Nuestro Cuento), producers have improved individual reconciliation skills such as trust, respect, and dialogue, and have strengthened the relationships between group members. This was cited by PAR in the way producers interact and communicate with each other respectfully. According to producers, attending the workshops helped to improve trust among the organization members and outside the organization. Awareness about the importance of collaborative work. Building upon the engagement in reconciliation-focused activities, producers acknowledged the importance of collaborative work. Although each producer has its own apiary, there are situations in which collective work is necessary. For instance, they share centrifuge equipment to extrude the honey but must move it from farm to farm so all can access it. One of the female beneficiaries stated that in order to carry out the activities she needs to rely on her colleagues like the rest of the producers: “Producer 1: That is to say, to bring up the centrifuge machine to extract the honey by centrifugal force it is up to you to get - well, me as a woman, alone - well not alone, but with the whole group. But as a woman it is up to me to make alliances with other colleagues to be able to bring up the machine, and then make alliances with colleagues to be able to bring that down again. It's just that you can't do it alone. You need to go with someone. In other words, this whole exercise is about communication and solidarity. Producer 2: Those people are always looking for the people in the group because they already know, and you already trust them. Producer 3: Well then, for example, Mr. Rodrigo and I live very close. When he needs, for example, to check, he asks me or I offer help him. The same thing happens with him. Producer 4: In fact, in the community apiary we work collectively, in convites42…When it is necessary to do those cleanings, we summon ourselves three and four, five people, depending on the activity that has to be done.” (Focus group with beneficiaries from AFRICOLMENAS. San Carlos, October 2019) Challenges Weaknesses in the empowerment driver. AFRICOLMENAS is an organization formed by victims of the armed conflict; most of them were victims of forced displacement that returned to San Carlos when the violence subsided. Government, non-government organizations, and foreign donors accompanied the return process by ensuring security conditions and through the implementation of initiatives that provided psychosocial and economic support to rebuild the social fabric and to create opportunities for economic development. Organizations such as AFRICOLMENAS and its members have been beneficiaries of multiple development and peacebuilding interventions. Resulting from participation in these processes, narratives from beneficiaries show important levels of awareness on issues like environmental conservation, climate change, and access to national and foreign aid (i.e. proposal preparation and project management). Despite awareness about these issues, beneficiaries refer to themselves as children that still need support to give 42 Groups of community members or producers that perform collaborative work around shared food. 29 the next step towards becoming a strong organization of producers. Members from AFRICOLMENAS stated: “There is a need to continue obtaining resources.43 Like I said earlier, [we are] like kids. We still need a hand to take the last step, before you [donors] let us go, right? So, it is like, keep sending resources from these entities to ensure we can achieve these dreams.” (Focus group with beneficiaries from AFRICOLMENAS, October, 2019) This mindset may have resulted from unstructured donor interventions, and although beneficiaries state that they improved individual and empowerment levels, they have not been able to see themselves as equals to, for instance, donors or buyers. GENDER ISSUES Achievements Increased awareness about gender issues. For CRC, and based on the result of the Index of Organizational Capabilities for Reconciliation conducted by PAR, there is a need not only to develop CRC’s gender policies, but also to implement strategies to improve attitudes and behaviors regarding gender issues among beneficiaries. In the AFRICOLMENAS project, women’s contributions to the honey production process are highly valued. According to male beneficiaries, women’s work ethic, discipline, and perseverance have helped to form cooperative relationships between project beneficiaries. The beneficiaries’ role in collecting and transporting the product challenges the traditional gender roles that machista societies typically assign to women. The women workers in the San Carlos project own their hives and contribute to honey production in an equal capacity to that of male workers. According to project beneficiaries, CRC’s gender workshops have propitiated a change in attitudes and behaviors not only among the associates but also in the relationships with their families. Challenges Lack of continuity implementing the Gender and Inclusion Strategy. CRC implemented gender awareness workshops, based on the transfer from PAR of the Gender and Inclusion strategy. As explained above, this has created a space to increase gender awareness within the intervention. However, C-AME observed that, with CRC leaving the project, these activities have not continued as F. ANDI has not worked with AFRICOLMENAS beneficiaries in this area. In interviews with the C-AME team, beneficiaries indicated that, despite improvements, they still have prejudices that reflect the widely held idea that LGBTI people are “unnatural.” Lack of awareness of LGBTI people and the challenges they face persists among project beneficiaries. The persistence of these ideas demonstrates the normalization and internalization of the gender binary, which classifies individuals as either masculine or feminine according to biological and determinist concepts. This binary assumes correlation between gender identity, gender expression, and the biological sex of an individual. SUSTAINABILITY Community Resilience. During the interview with staff from Nutresa, the interviewees highlighted the fact that one of the elements that will most contribute to building reconciliation is the resilience capacity 43 Referring to sources such as development agencies, government and non-government funds for development. 30 demonstrated by producers. Nutresa emphasized that resilience is a community feature that can add value to their productive processes: “I believe that there is something positive in those territories of San Rafael and San Carlos, and that is that they are extremely resilient communities. They are communities that were able to overcome the conflict, they are communities that were able to overcome that stage of violence that those two territories lived through, and that today have taken that learning as a key point to generate value when it comes to being able to participate in those negotiation scenarios. I think they are communities that have a lot to teach us as a group. We have a lot to offer and to share knowledge with them, but they also have a lot to teach us as Grupo Nutresa.” [Interview with staff from Nutresa, October, 2019] In the narratives of the participants, C-AME found that indeed, the community acknowledged its past but wants to move on, to build reconciliation in their territory. Focus on one commercialization target (F. ANDI and CRC). F. ANDI conducted important work identifying a potential wholesale buyer in Nutresa. However, the buyer determined the product type and specifications, and producers argued they are not yet ready to meet this demand. The challenges of convincing buyers to purchase from small and vulnerable producers that F. ANDI led could become an obstacle for the long￾term sustainability of the producers, since it requires focusing on one buyer only. For producers, it would be significant to have a buyer like Nutresa, but they also insist that there seem to be alternatives beyond the wholesale market around beekeeping, like tourism, customers willing to pay a premium for the history of resilience of the members of the organization, or alternative products derived from beekeeping. Technical expertise from F. ANDI suggests this is not going to provide enough, or stable enough, earnings for the producers. C-AME cannot anticipate whether the commercial partnership will ultimately be established and successful. What is important is to work on the development of capacities of the producers so they can make informed decisions about their future and the markets they intend to enter. PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT FOR AT-RISK YOUTH FROM URBAN AREAS The other project implemented by CRC and evaluated by C-AME on this iteration is the Psychosocial support for at-risk youth from urban areas. This initiative has been implemented in Medellín, Cúcuta, Florencia, Santa Marta, and Cartagena, but the present analysis builds upon results from the fieldwork conducted in Medellín and explores the accomplishments and challenges from implementation. The project works with youth who are part of the Sistema de Responsabilidad Penal para Adolescentes44 (SRPA). The project implements the CRC Reconciliatory Practices methodology, La Reconciliación es Nuestro Cuento (LRNC)45 with criminally prosecuted youths from SRPA for whom the system is seeking alternative ways to reintegrate into society as part of the restorative justice process. The project is phase two of a pilot that sought to provide psychosocial support to youth from SRPA, adapting features of DecidoSer to their LRNC psychosocial support methodology. During seven encounters, four dimensions—or superpowers of reconciliation (empathy, trust, reciprocity and cooperation)—of the CRC methodology were implemented with young boys and girls from the SRPA. An eighth encounter took place in a public space in which the participants of the initiative put to the test what they learned in the different sessions by presenting this to bystanders and, in the process, illustrating communication and reconciliation skills. 44 Criminal Responsibility System for Adolescents 45 Reconciliation is Our Story. 31 Implementation of this project has a complex structure that is worth noting. The ICBF, as member of the SRPA, supervises youth participation in this program as a form of probation. Third parties or operators from the regional offices of the ICBF lend their space and their groups of adolescents for the process. The CRC and PAR lead sessions with two facilitators that have psychology training. The independent operators—in the case of Medellín, an organization called Terciarios Capuchinos—have one of their psychosocial facilitators attend the sessions so they can learn and adapt the methodology to other settings. Illustrated in the following diagram (Figure 4), the Casa Juvenil Amigó Program from the Terciarios Capuchinos is one of the many spaces of the SRPA designed to have alternative justice measures that do not rely solely on incarceration. The Colombian judicial system includes a specialized criminal system for youth between ages 14 and 18 that have committed a crime called the Sistema de Responsabilidad Penal para Adolescentes (SRPA). The system includes a set of norms, activities, institutions and people who work as a team to investigate and decide the restorative actions to be taken with these adolescents. The system takes into account that adolescents who have committed a crime have the right to rehabilitation and resocialization, through plans and programs guaranteed by the State, because they are seen as “victims” whose basic rights have been unmet and therefore should be treated differently from adults. Restorative justice, rather than punitive, is one of the guiding principles of the SRPA. Accordingly, a guiding principle in the Childhood and Adolescence Law is that justice for youth should be restorative in nature. One of the institutions in charge of applying Restorative Justice in Colombia is the ICBF, the lead entity of the SRPA. Their interest is not to punish young offenders, but to attend to the social conditions that led to committing the crime, to activate the various judicial and administrative entities that conform the SRPA, and support the offender, the victim, and the community. This systemic approach to youth offenders is not only innovative, but also seeks to reflect upon some of the structural problems Colombian society faces. Data shows that young persons that enter this system face issues like poverty, lack of access to quality education, job opportunities and violent community and family contexts, showing high levels of exclusion and vulnerability. This is one of the reasons that Restorative Justice focuses not only on the offender, but also considers the society that proved incapable of protecting the child from the conditions that led them to commit an offense or crime. However, only persons who have committed minor crimes are accepted in this system. In this context, youth from SRPA seem suitable to participate in this PAR reconciliation effort. Psychosocial support and reconciliation are the core of the project and it is expected by implementers that project participation improves the capacity of at-risk youth for community and social reintegration. It is important to add that C-AME had limited access to the beneficiaries of the project due to special restrictions applicable when working with minors, especially those from SRPA. ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREA: PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT FOR RECONCILIATION Figure 4. Implementation Route of the CRC, at-risk youth project 32 Achievements Implemented methodology achieved disassociation from obligation. The psychosocial support program implemented by PAR and CRC is an alternative to traditional sentencing options, and despite enforcing no consequences for failure to attend, it has low dropout rates. Alternative sentencing programs like the ones offered at the Juan Luis Amigó house46 tend to have, according to staff from CRC and Luis Amigó, high dropout rates because youth are not forced to attend and see these sentences as an extra penalty that they typically abandon. 47 For this specific project, the dropout rate has been low and both the implementers and the ICBF have been adamant to point out that the methodology employed disconnects the alternative sentence from an obligation, instead presenting the programming as an opportunity for learning and positive individual development. According to the implementers, the youths’ behavioral changes are due to this separation from obligation and are compounded by the program design and experts’ close connections with the participants. Increased trust among peers and towards facilitators. It takes a lot of work to get to a point where the young boys and girls in the program have trust in the facilitators of the process, and their peers. The youths involved in the initiative come from difficult backgrounds and are cautious when dealing with facilitators that do not come from the same places. Nevertheless, participants remarked that they felt the facilitators used simple language that allowed them to connect with the youths and address their problems. Facilitators also identified a simpler manner of speaking as an advantage but warned that friendly relationships can be harmful if the facilitator loses track of the objectives of the workshop and is unable to maintain sufficient distance to clearly signal their position of authority. The facilitators acknowledged that the workshops could work through these kinds of unexpected issues through clear but flexible guidance of participants by the facilitator. In this way, they accomplished their goals for each encounter. On the other hand, participants also expressed that unity among peers was one of the project’s main achievements. They felt that this was an opportunity to make friends with new people. Through these meetings, they recognized that everyone is unique and has their own story. The project emphasized and promoted acceptance of others and respect during the implementation period. Integration of DecidoSer. C-AME, the facilitators, and the ICBF observed evidence of integration of the DecidoSer methodology from PAR into the LRNC methodology. Unlike in the other projects analyzed for this DE, for this project, a document was prepared by CRC and PAR to show the methodological integration of LRNC and DecidoSer methodologies. This process sought to align trust, reciprocity, empathy, and cooperation—the four superpowers of reconciliation, according to CRC—with the four correlating drivers of reconciliation: trust, respect, dialogue, and empowerment. This is especially important because this document lays out a clear implementation path for subsequent interventions attempting to combine PAR’s DecidoSer with other approaches. Adapting the methodologies facilitates more communicative and inclusive processes in which the funders and implementers have a clear notion of their specific roles in the project. Participants engagement resulted in the beginning of emotional awareness. Although the results of implementation of this pilot are not yet published, the participants said one of the main strengths of the workshops was that they allowed participants to address their feelings and emotions in a way that they had not experienced before. Reconciliation is a process and experience achieved through relationship￾building and individual healing. The youths were able to express their frustrations, which was valuable for them both as individuals and as part of a collective. It allowed each participant to be able to acknowledge 46 Luis Amigó House is one of the implementers of restorative justice and alternative sentencing programs. 47 According to staff from CRC, from the thirteen young boys and girls that started the process, eleven remained. There is not sufficient information about the dropout rates of other programs in the SRPA. 33 that others had difficult situations too, and no matter what situation they faced, they could help each other. The implementation was also successful in identifying the need for this process to include a real￾world application scenario. CRC developed the reconciliation initiative (eighth encounter) at EAFIT University in which the participants could share the lessons they had learned with students and other bystanders, socializing the initiative and affecting a broader community. Although the perceptions of members of society towards these adolescents cannot be measured for the purpose of this analysis, what is evident is how the participants changed their perception of themselves, an important change in the reconciliation process. These individual improvements have the potential of increasing participants’ capacity to reintegrate into their communities and the society and become subjects of change. Challenges Obstacles to fully integrate DecidoSer and LRNC. Despite the comprehensive planning mentioned above, and although the facilitators from CRC expressed their intent to implement an integrated methodology in their workshops, in practice, the workshop sessions showed a division, rather than a fusion, of these approaches. The first half hour used DecidoSer strategies and the remaining two hours were dedicated to workshops from LRNC. This is a lesson for PAR and the need to continue working to integrate the Reconciliation Approach into its partners’ own reconciliation methodologies, assessing what works and what does not. Operator workload and institutional coordination. The implementers and staff from the ICBF were concerned about the demands that implementing a program like this would place on their already saturated workloads. Nonetheless, program operators found that the number and duration of sessions were insufficient for the depth and type of issues the program sought to address, and considering that some youth who were very engaged and talked for long time. The length of the sessions had been decided through an agreement between PAR, CRC and ICBF, acknowledging that having extended sessions could be problematic because of the short attention span of some of the adolescents, according to the experience of ICBF working with this group. As PAR and CRC noted out, exercises that took eight hours had to be redesigned and adapted to shorter times, sacrificing some of the content. This is a lesson from implementation indicating that the top-down implementation process could benefit from feedback from operators in the field. On the other hand, the ICBF bureaucratic requirements also delayed the estimated project start date. The ICBF central headquarters had to approve every regional requirement and oversaw all decisions made about the project, which slowed and delayed implementation. However, this also has to do with the requirement from the operator that the time span between the encounters would ensure continuity of the initiative among the youths. Biased selection of project beneficiaries. The implementers of the initiative mentioned that they deliberately chose participants who demonstrated leadership skills, and capacity to commit to processes like the one implemented by CRC to form part of the process. They did not provide documentation of these selection criteria. The implementers cite this intentional selection of the participants as a factor that led to positive outcomes of the initiative, but a group of youth selected randomly would enable the implementer to test out the capacities and resilience of the initiative using quasi-experimental methodologies. GENDER ISSUES The analysis of the implementation of gender and social inclusion (GSI) strategy in La Reconciliación es nuestro cuento stems from the examination of two dynamics that arose during the implementation of the initiative: the social and cultural constructs of masculinity. The group of participants was mostly men, with 34 11 men and two women48. The male-dominated group meant that activities carried out in pairs yielded mostly pairs of the same sex. Some of the activities carried out involved physical contact like hugs and massages, lying with one’s head in the lap of another person, making eye contact while sitting or standing close to someone, etc. The psychosocial facilitators of the initiative expressed to C-AME that the male participants felt uncomfortable in the activities that had physical contact or closeness and expressed their discomfort because they had to do these activities with other men. This meant that, despite not having a specific activity intended to address gender issues in the initiative, the workshops required a special approach of the GSI component by the facilitators of the initiative. The relationship among participants of the initiative was marked by a rejection within the group of a young person from the LGBTI community. In the narrative of the participants interviewed, C-AME identified a range of prejudices towards the LGBTI community. In a frank and open way, they expressed that they had difficulties sharing with this person because of these preconceived ideas. According to the initiative operators, the misguided notion that a homosexual man would be indiscriminately attracted to all men was possibly the factor that generated avoidance and discrimination inside the group. Participants and facilitators said that these preconceptions were addressed in activities of the initiative and were resolved during the implementation and as a result, a closer relationship was achieved among the young participants. Although there was a change in mentality and participants formed new friendships, youth said that they still imagined having difficulty sharing these new relationships with their families, because they feel that discrimination persists in the places where they live. This is related to the social construction of masculinity in Medellín, where notions of what ought to be the values, behaviors, and conduct of men are informed by hegemonic masculinity. The difficulty is even more complex because of the vulnerable and fragile contexts these young people come from, the rupture of their families, the lack of spaces of affection, care and protection where they can express without fear of being judged. SUSTAINABILITY Extending the methodological work with family members. The project implementer and operator highlighted the initiative lacked the involvement of the family members of youth participating in LRNC. Under the project, even though this was not an explicit objective of the initiative, PAR pays important attention to enabling protective environments for at-risk populations such as these SRPA youth. Thus, there was an implicit incentive for the implementers to involve the family members of the participants, so that the workshops could have a broader impact. These processes need a safe environment to thrive and, theoretically, if other family members are involved, when the youth return to their homes they can continue to apply what they learned in the activities. This is especially important when most of the participants were charged with domestic violence-related crimes, reiterating the need of the process to cover family members in order to address this problem. On certain occasions, the family members were invited by the staff from the ICBF operator to participate but many could not attend the meetings because they had work or could not afford public transportation. Lack of active family involvement in the psychosocial process of the youth could diminish the positive individual outcomes of the project. Availability of psychosocial support to the families could contribute to reduced intra-family conflict and violence. CONTEXT ANALYSIS: TRENDS, RISKS, AND CONSEQUENCES FOR INTERVENTION AND RESULTS (Q2 & Q3) 48 In 2018, in Medellín of the 1,498 young persons that were involved in crimes, 1,357 were men and only 141 were women according to ICBF. For more data see: https://www.icbf.gov.co/bienestar/observatorio-bienestar￾ninez/tablero-srpa. 35 Implementation from PAR’s strategic partners must take into consideration the context in which those interventions take place. These contexts may indicate potential factors that affect implementation, some of which are unforeseeable and some—like local socio-economic conditions and how those can affect event attendance—the implementing partner can anticipate. There are other factors such as presence of armed actors that, whether predictable or not, limit implementation program capacity, but reaction is mostly outside the program scope. The analysis of complex environments helps identify which contextual factors may affect the results of the Reconciliation Activity, enabling the design of strategies to refine the interventions and obtain better results. C-AME will present the contextual analysis organized by location type, first for projects located in rural areas and then those in urban areas. The analysis identifies patterns for PAR and USAID so that they may take advantage of opportunities or understand and overcome the effects of the contextual factors and apply adaptive management models that leverage PAR’s and its partners’ capacities. The contextual analysis in rural areas includes analyses of the operating contexts in five projects implemented in Bojayá (Chocó), San Carlos (Antioquia), and Usme (Bogotá) by three of PAR’s strategic partners: CNMH, F. ANDI, and CRC. Two projects were implemented in the urban areas of Buenaventura and Medellín by CNMH and CRC, respectively. Context factors sometimes become barriers that affect implementation and limit intervention results. Analysis from this section contributes to better presaging of unanticipated roadblocks in implementation, floating alternative causal explanations, and suggesting promising paths of intervention to PAR implementers and partners that account for trends or changes in local contexts. THE CONTEXT OF THE RECONCILIATION ACTIVITY IN RURAL AREAS OF INTERVENTION The rural areas analyzed in this DE have experienced social and armed conflict that damaged the social fabric of their communities. These rural areas have experienced problems such as forced displacement, restriction of movement, loss of assets, homicides, threats, political persecution, and critical restrictions of the economic and social possibilities available to ensure stable livelihoods. PAR’s strategic partners implement projects in rural areas that seek to: (a) promote economic strengthening processes through the promotion of commercial linkages and market opportunities for agricultural products, and (b) generate memory mechanisms that contribute to healing the collective damage experienced by the communities due to the armed conflict. C-AME identified five context factors affecting the implementation and results of PAR initiatives: • Environmental and climatic factors • Changes in state institutions • Transportation infrastructure • Presence of armed actors • Socio-economic characteristics of the territory ENVIRONMENTAL AND CLIMATIC FACTORS These factors affected the implementation and results of the strawberry and lettuce projects in rural areas of Usme and AFRICOLMENAS in rural areas of San Carlos. Climate variations in San Carlos and the difficulties of accessing water in the dry season in rural Usme have been an adaptation challenge for producers. 36 Context Factors Affecting Implementation (Q2) Climatic conditions affected the projects’ implementation. In Usme, the average annual rainfall is around 800 to 1,000 millimeters. The rainy season is from April to October, and the dry season is from November to March. The temperature oscillates between 3ºC and 18ºC, and the relative humidity oscillates between dry and semi-dry (60-85%.)49,50 During the dry season, the natural sources of water supply available to F. ANDI beneficiaries in Usme are insufficient to meet their agricultural use needs. To respond to this shortage, they use rural communities' water systems51 (rural aqueducts) to irrigate crops and clean produce. The producers stated that this creates several difficulties: • In the supply system, the water goes through chemical treatment processes that add chlorine and other elements that can affect the harvest and the final product. The beneficiaries indicated that washing lettuce with water from the water systems produces stains on the leaves, which reduces the product’s likelihood of being accepted by the buyer. • In the strawberry project there is insufficient maintenance of irrigation systems, which affects the system effectiveness and efficiency.52 • The use of rural communities' water systems during the dry season entails additional costs for producers. In addition to increased cost, access to alternative water sources during the dry season caused an inter-community conflict. The beneficiaries of the strawberry project had a conflict with their neighbors since the available water in the rural community’s water system is not enough to meet the needs of both the population and the crops. These water systems supply the entire community, and when water is scarce, the population must guarantee the equitable distribution of water.53 49 Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales. (N/A). Estudio de la caracterización climática de Bogotá y la cuenca alta del rio Tunjuelo. 50 Alcaldía Local de Usme. (2017). Atlas Usme Ambiental. Bogotá 51 Community self-management methods for the use and management of water as a right. Correa, H. (2006). Acueductos comunitarios, patrimonio público y movimientos sociales. URL: http://www.corpenca.org/images/stories/documentos/acueductoscomunitariospatrimoniopublicomovimientossocial es.pdf 52 Fundación ANDI. (2017b). Informe de factibilidad. Empresa: Crepes & Waffles S.A. Asociación: Corporación Red Mujer. Producto interés del encadenamiento: Fresas. Zona de interés: Usme, Bogotá. 53 Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt (IAvH), Fundación Universidad Externado de Colombia. (2015). Caracterización socioeconómica y cultural del complejo de Páramos Cruz Verde￾Sumapaz en jurisdicción de la CAM, CAR, CORMACARENA, SDA y CORPORINOQUIA. [The lettuce] needs to be perfectly [washed] with all conditions, with drinking water, not from the water system, water that has no chlorine because that darkens the lettuce. […] If we use water from the rural community water system, it has chlorine and burns the lettuce. […] Although [the creek water] is not treated, it is potable, many of us drink it. What happens is that the pipe that goes from the dam to El Dorado Plant goes above, and there are suction cups or discharges in the creeks and therefore, that water, although not treated over there, is sedimented and runs very clear [Focus Group with beneficiaries of the lettuce project. Bogotá, October 2019]. 37 Faced with this situation, beneficiaries of the strawberry project are especially vulnerable, as 50% of beneficiary households surveyed by F. ANDI have difficulty accessing improved water sources via connections to the public water system. In addition, the dry season affects their production, as the strawberry variety they planted has a 10% higher water requirement than other varieties. 54 Therefore, for C￾AME it is important that productive projects implemented in areas with difficult access to water prioritize the development of efficient water management plans to supply crops and avoid community conflicts. Context Factors Affecting Results (Q3) Climate conditions in Usme and the related challenges producers face (e.g. lack of economic resources to pay extra for accessing water system) affect the project results. Lettuce needs very particular conditions to grow well. According to the F. ANDI pre-feasibility report, tudela lettuce must be planted in an open field with an average temperature of 15 ºC to 20 ºC, approximately 12 hours of sun light per day, and within a narrow range of specific altitudes, precipitation levels, humidity, and soil pH. Tudela lettuce is “sensitive to the excess of humidity and waterlogging; it resists low temperatures, although the effect of a frost may result in irreversible damage.”55 In the pre-feasibility stage of the lettuce project, F. ANDI56 considered establishing a prototype for a rainwater capturing system to minimize the potential damage caused during the rainy and dry seasons. However, conversation with beneficiaries did not indicate that this was implemented. Given that this system may require a training process on the efficient use of water, this may be evidence of a need to generate alliances with strategic actors in the sector of science, technology and innovation, experts in water management and irrigation issues. Unexpected climate variations also affected the results of the AFRICOLMENAS project in San Carlos. Beekeepers stated that climate change negatively affected their production dynamics because they were not able to collect enough honey during the rainy season. Since the rain patterns have changed, as rains come either early or late, beneficiaries cannot accurately anticipate the climatic variations. Therefore, they acknowledge the need for developing adaptive management practices to mitigate climate change effects on their livelihoods. These practices would reinforce the investments, minimize losses in rainy seasons, 54 Fundación ANDI. (2017a). Informe de factibilidad. Empresa: Home Burgers. Asociación: AGROSUMAR y Guiando Territorio. Producto interés del encadenamiento: Lechuga cogollo europeo. Zona de interés: Usme, Bogotá 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. We had a two-month dry season, for the four greenhouses and had trouble because we had to use water from the [rural community] water system. […] The water was not enough water for them [the neighbors] and [they said] that all the water was coming to the greenhouses [Focus Group with beneficiaries of the strawberry project. Bogotá, October 2019]. When the dry season comes, we do not have a water source; we have no reservoir; so the situation turns complicated because we have to use the water system and the cost for the family raise because the bill will be expensive. […] In addition, water supply is sometimes cut; if we are not prepared, where can we get water for the lettuce crop? [Focus Group with beneficiaries of the lettuce project. Bogotá, October 2019]. 38 and increase the sustainability of the initiatives. For this reason, they have looked for alternatives to diversify their production: they currently sell honey in bottles, flavored honey, honey mead, bee pollen and colonies of bee nuclei. In the future, they hope to diversify into beauty products, develop the capacity to sell hives, acquire knowledge to make beekeeping suits for beekeepers and adapt a space for a carpenter's workshop to build their own bee boxes. PAR can learn and help to empower these adaptive management practices to mitigate climate variations. Intra-community conflicts arising from the use of water hinder progress towards achieving the components of PAR's Theory of Change and in the community dimension of reconciliation. Although they do not directly affect business with the buyer in the case of the inclusive linkage projects, these conflicts affect projects’ outcomes, since the main objective of interventions is to create more and better conditions for reconciliation through economic empowerment. Anticipating the challenges posed by climate circumstances may prevent the negative effects on the citizens’ coexistence at the community level. This is significant for PAR, considering that one of the differentiating factors in the alliance with F. ANDI is the construction of the confidence driver. According to PAR’s Theory of Change, this driver implies the promotion of social cooperation and cohesion in the scenarios where the Reconciliation Activity takes place. Contextual factors that are difficult to manage like stable access to water sources may inhibit the advance of the drivers, demonstrating that transformative alliances and economic empowerment alone are not enough to generate reconciliation. PAR and implementing partners must consider the environmental context of implementation as well. CHANGES IN STATE INSTITUTIONS As discussed in the analysis of memory reconstruction interventions, CNMH made important adjustments after the leadership changes in late 2018 and early 2019 when Darío Acevedo replaced the former director of the institution, Gonzalo Sánchez. According to victims’ organizations (e.g. the Committee for the Rights of the Victims of Bojayá), Acevedo’s approaches to the concept and history of the armed conflict have transformed how this institution supports and promotes the memory processes, in turn affecting CNMH’s priorities and strategies. Context Factors Affecting Implementation (Q2) According to C-AME interviewees, from the resignation of Gonzalo Sánchez on November 5, 2018 until February 21, 2019, CNMH had no leadership to help it pursue its mission and comply with its agreement with ACDI/VOCA. During that four-month period, the decision-making process stopped, and administrative processes required for implementing the PAR-CNMH agreement were delayed, affecting part of the fund disbursement of PAR to CNMH. For this reason, and because of the cut in the CNMH's budget for fiscal year 2019,57 the institution was unable to hire staff until the new director took office. 57 The cause of the modification of the CNMH's budget for 2019 was the non-execution of the entire budget allocated in the previous term. The new anticipated cut for 2020 is due to modifications in the General Budget of the Nation, which imply a reduction of 29 billion for the entity (Kienyke, August 12, 2019). Weather has changed a lot. In the past, we were told “July has arrived,” just summer. So, we knew that blooming was just coming. Now, we can’t do that because summer comes earlier, so blooming starts earlier as well. Then, winter arrives and blooming stops… We have to find other alternatives. For example, sometimes, when there is no honey, we set traps to place pollen …The other [alternative] we have assumed is transformation… Through the project ‘Reconciliation Colombia,’ we produce honey with spices to add value to them.” [Focus Group with beneficiaries of the beekeeping project. San Carlos, October 2019] 39 CNMH was unable to make payments and renew contracts to operators and memory managers in Bojayá and Buenaventura, which delayed the development of the memory albums in Bojayá and modified the timeline for implementing project activities. C-AME observed the challenges of CNMH’s lack of leadership during project implementation, which resulted in difficulties in the relationship between PAR and CNMH. It is important for PAR to adjust its administrative and financial systems based on adaptive management principles in order to respond to unexpected changes. CNMH’s leadership transition and the slow onboarding of new officials delayed the decision-making processes, affecting PAR’s ability to react to the administrative vacuum and preventing timely fund disbursement to CNMH. While the factors described above initially affected the execution times, the communities in Bojayá and Buenaventura played a decisive role in the continued implementation of project activities. The memory managers of the Historias de vida and Memorias projects were members of local social movements and showed their commitment to the project by continuing activities despite their delayed payments. Context Factors Affecting Results (Q3) CNMH’s leadership change did not affect the Historias de vida project’s goal of developing family albums.58 The changes did, however, affect communities’ confidence in CNMH as a public institution representing the state in Bojayá and the region. According to CNMH beneficiaries, the appointment of Darío Acevedo generated some concerns due to the perception that some of his statements seemed to oppose CNMH’s mission to build reconciliation through memory, in compliance with Law 1448 of 2011 (Victims and Land Restitution Act). In statements to the newspaper El Colombiano (February 2, 2019), Darío Acevedo affirmed that, “[…] although the Victims Act says what the victims’ experienced was an armed conflict, that cannot become the official truth.”59 The statement discouraged the participation of the victims in activities carried out by CNMH. The administrative vacuum period and the appointment of Darío Acevedo, two unforeseen occurrences, negatively affected the communities’ trust in CNMH, and, by extension, in entities of the GOC. Since one of the main drivers of the PAR ToC is trust, such contingencies affect the goals stated in the theory of change and, consequently, diminish possibilities for building reconciliation. To reduce the perception among Bojayá’s communities that the state has abandoned them, state entities must comply with their commitments, in this case, supporting initiatives of memory reconstruction for victims. It is therefore critical that the state support beneficiaries of the Bojayá project as it aims to provide symbolic healing of victims, contributing to individual and collective healing. This type of initiative incorporates highly significant social components, such as commemoration of murdered individuals, recovery of funeral rites, spiritual closure, strengthening of the work on memory topics, and improvement of remembrance spaces. 60 The community has high expectations for these initiatives, and delays in the schedule or changes in the implementer’s agenda, such as those that occurred during CNMH’s leadership transition, can further damage community perceptions of state entities. This situation exemplifies the need 58 As detailed in the project analysis, under the project there were 40 family gatherings with their respective albums, which exceeded participants’ initial expectations. 59 El Colombiano (February 2, 2019). El conflicto armado no puede convertirse en verdad oficial. URL: https://www.elcolombiano.com/colombia/el-conflicto-armado-no-puede-convertirse-en-verdad-oficial-NE10142953 60 A more detailed description of the proposal and the project’s road map may be consulted in the documents Atrato, territory of stories that builds its memory and Road map to build the life stories of casualties in Bojaya’s Massacre. 40 for contingency plans. Absence of these plans may become an obstacle to building trust, preventing changes that may facilitate reconciliation, and impact the development of PAR’s Theory of Change. TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE Productive projects in rural areas must manage difficulties related to transportation. High transport costs mainly affect the initiatives that take place in Bojayá, San Carlos, and Usme, as these communities face additional obstacles to access markets. Context Factors Affecting Implementation (Q2) The availability and conditions of transportation infrastructure in the project areas is a factor that projects must consider. Data about connectivity and the condition of the road network in the country allowed the C-AME team to understand the challenges that producers from rural zones encounter. According to the Private Council of Competitiveness61 (2018), the road connectivity index in Colombia is 47.93 out of one hundred, ranking the country 13th out of 18 countries in Latin America. The roads quality index is 3.27 out of seven. 43.6% of the paved network and 90.5% of the unpaved network are in not so good, bad, or very bad condition62. Lack of transportation infrastructure represents an immense challenge for the rural areas that are located far from national economic development centers, such as Bojayá (see “Context factors affecting results” below). Although Usme is a jurisdiction of a large urban area, some of its rural areas are isolated and have difficulties accessing markets due to distance, road conditions, and lack of transportation options. All beneficiaries associated with the inclusive linkage projects have referenced difficulties transporting their products from farms and storage locations to the reception centers of the buyer. The lettuce project’s pre-feasibility report indicated that after harvest, lettuce must be transported and stored carefully to reduce the risk of microbial, physical, and chemical contamination. Currently, producers must use public transit, taxis, or private cars to deliver the lettuce, which increases the likelihood of contamination. The road infrastructure conditions have also affected the implementation of the project in San Carlos. In San Carlos, “many roads are deficient […]; not all townships have access roads […], the roads at the municipality are poorly lit and badly signaled the whole way.”63 In Antioquia’s western sub-region64, where information from the municipality of San Carlos was available, only 5.6% of the tertiary roads are paved.65 The lack transport options and the time involved in travelling are variables that make it difficult to carry out the activities and impact the quality of life of the beneficiaries. The costs of hiring a haulage or taxi service, the deterioration in the quality of the product appearance due to the use of the public transport system, the distance and time of transport between the place of production and the place of delivery of the product, are factors that directly influence the execution of the projects. 61 Consejo Privado de Competitividad. (2018). Informe Nacional de Competitividad 2018-2019. Bogotá 62 Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública. (2018). Análisis del sector transporte. 63 Alcaldía Municipal de San Carlos Antioquia. (2016). Plan de Desarrollo Municipal 2016-2019: Trabajando por el desarrollo social. URL: http://www.sancarlos￾antioquia.gov.co/Transparencia/PlaneacionGestionyControl/PLAN%20DE%20DESARROLLO%202016%20- %202019.pdf 64 The office of the governor of Antioquia provides information about Antioquia’s western region, including the municipality of San Carlos, however, this municipality is actually located in the eastern part of the department of Antioquia. 65 Gobernación de Antioquia, Departamento Administrativo de Planeación. (2017). Anuario Estadístico de Antioquia 41 AFRICOLMENAS producers indicated that the condition of rural paths and bridle paths in the municipality prevents the use of vehicles. Beneficiaries must carry honey containers on foot from their farms to reach roads that are good enough to use motorcycles. The walk typically takes between 20 minutes and one hour, and the cost to transport the containers by motorcycle is $7,000 COP per drum. Poor road conditions cost time and money for the beneficiaries; increase transportation costs, and affect their health and quality of life because they must walk long distances on hard roads while carrying heavy loads. The organization’s budget projections include purchasing pack animals and motor carts (motorcycles with a small load space in the back) to reduce transport costs and make the production and commercialization process more efficient. Context Factors Affecting Results (Q3) The plantain project includes plantain farms in the rural communities of La Loma, Piedra Candela, and Pogue near the Bojayá and Atrato Rivers. The municipality’s urban center, La Nueva Bellavista, is between 30 minutes and 3 hours from these communities, and 28 kilometers from the regional urban center, Quibdó. Transporting passengers or cargo to Quibdó can therefore take anywhere between three and ten hours, depending on the type of river transport available. Given that geographic conditions (Bojayá can only be reached by river or air) preclude land transportation to the market in Quibdó or other locations outside Bojayá, F. ANDI’s inclusive linkage projects must market their products in bulk. Although it reduces transportation costs, this strategy requires intensive logistical support to ensure the product arrives to the buyers. According to C-AME interviewees, the project’s dependence on transport providers, the time it takes to move the goods, and the high transport cost, which varies according to river conditions, are obstacles to making higher earnings for APLAMEDA members. Similarly, the additional time needed to transport the product may cause it to ripen before it reaches the buyer, which increases the risk of financial losses. Bojayá’s transportation infrastructure problems therefore have negative effects on the project’s financial competitiveness and sustainability.66 There is an important concern from the buyers and F. ANDI about the logistics involved in the commercialization process that require further 66 Alcaldía de Bojayá. (2016). Plan de Desarrollo Municipal 2016-2019: “Desarrollo con Sentido Social, Camino a la Paz”. URL: https://bojayachoco.micolombiadigital.gov.co/sites/bojayachoco/content/files/000022/1053_plan-de-desarrollo￾municipio-de-bojaya-20162019.pdf Where the farms are located close to the road, an ‘autocart’ – a small car – is hired; for others [far from the road], we carry it on our backs … half an hour with the drum on our back. From there, we have to pay for a motorcycle that … charges 7,000 pesos. So, if we have 4 drums, it is 48,000 that we need to pay. We need to improve … the transportation conditions of honey, from the hives to the stores or to the clients that want to buy from us. [Interview with beneficiaries from San Carlos, October 2019]. Photo 6 Beneficiaries of the Project Bojayá: Plantain Inclusive Linkage with APLAMEDA. Photo: Juan Ruiz Celis 42 analysis of the supply chain. Companies in Bogotá said that the delivery costs of the plantain are high and that transport from Bojayá is difficult because of the inland waterways and from the many potential contingencies that could arise en route. These factors could affect the quality and price of the plantains, as well as the profits, and the formalization of the commercial agreement between the companies and APLAMEDA. Managing the expectations of the community around these agreements is of special importance and continues to be a lingering issue in this project. PRESENCE OF ARMED ACTORS The evolution of the armed conflict, especially in areas that were controlled by the FARC prior to the signing of the Peace Agreement, influences the implementation and results of the Reconciliation Activity. The emergence, reorganization, and expansion of illegal armed groups, as well as confrontations for territorial control, are matters that affect the communities and generate anxiety among Historias de vida project participants. Assassinations of social leaders and human rights advocates have continued to occur even after the signing of the Peace Agreement. Armed confrontations between groups have affected the Historias de vida and plantain projects by weakening conditions for memory reconstruction and plantain sales, respectively. According to C-AME's interviews with the Governor’s Office of Chocó, after the cease-fire that preceded the signing of the Peace Agreement, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional67 (ELN) occupied the former FARC territory and expanded its control in the department from seven towns to 19. Additionally, the spread of the Clan del Golfo68 in the region, and their frequent conflicts with the ELN, have further deteriorated the population’s living conditions. Context Factors Affecting Implementation (Q2) In Bojayá, social leaders and human rights advocates feel constantly under threat, discouraging participation of the memory managers in some of the CNMH memory reconstruction activities. Given the managers’ importance to CNMH’s work with relatives of the victims, their missing leadership affects logistical coordination with participants. This situation also prevented CNMH from visiting the municipality as planned, because the protection measures that public officials often take, such as support from the National Police, can increase the risk of exposure to acts of violence by armed actors in the territory. According to Somos Defensores,69 during the first quarter of 2019, there were 591 aggressive acts against social leaders and human rights advocates around the country, a 48% increase compared to the same period in the previous year. While Chocó is not the Department with the highest levels of violence against human rights advocates, a social leader was assassinated during this semester in Riosucio (Chocó) and many have been threatened and persecuted due to their activism work. This threat of violence discouraged community members from participating in memory and reconciliation activities. The Early Warning System of the Ombudsman Office indicated that security for residents of Bojayá has declined this year due to increased confrontations between armed actors, which have caused multiple restrictions on movements of people from their homes and within their communities. These confrontations were especially high during September and October when 16 leaders in Bojayá were threatened for opposing the presence of the armed actors in the town. Inhabitants are also at increased risk due to the placement of anti-personnel mines in the region. According to Early Warning 017-19 and 67 National Liberation Army. 68 A drug cartel that was formerly a paramilitary group. 69 Somos Defensores. (2019). Defensores. ¿El juego final? Bogotá: Somos Defensores y Asociación Minga. 43 the Newsletter 35-1970, affected communities have restricted access to medications, transportation, and food, impacting their survival and quality of life. During the implementation of the plantain project, the conflicts between the ELN and Clan del Golfo in September and October caused worry and uncertainty among the beneficiaries. Context Factors Affecting Results (Q3) The continued presence of armed actors in the region has also affected the results of the Historias de vida project by discouraging beneficiaries from taking leadership roles and obstructing the use of memory for reconciliation, essential elements of PAR’s Theory of Change. According to the implementing partner, the presence of armed groups is a blocking element of memory that censors and inhibits the use of memory practices. Violent actions delay or eliminate the possibility of meetings among the participants and generate skepticism about reconciliation by obstructing communication and memory production. In the case of the plantain project, although the conflict has not prevented the harvest, transport, or sale of fruit, it does increase the risk that such delays may occur in the future. The risk is significant, considering that confrontations between the ELN and Clan del Golfo have often taken place in rural communities where APLAMEDA cultivates plantains. The continuation of the armed conflict in Bojayá also poses questions regarding the feasibility of building reconciliation at the local level. Promoting sustainable reconciliation processes in areas where victimization continues presents a double challenge. First, efforts to rebuild the social fabric are uncertain due to the risk of violence, and second, skepticism regarding reconciliation as a social process slows project progress regardless of the success of the specific initiatives PAR promotes. This skepticism may lead to unmet objectives from PAR’s Theory of Change as regional conflict dynamics limit the development of trust and empowerment and prevent Colombians from autonomously taking actions to strengthen reconciliation. SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TERRITORY Territorial attributes play an important role in project performance, regardless of the project’s type, and they contribute to the interventions’ sustainability in the medium and long-term by influencing project implementation according to the rules, customs, and social dynamics of the territory. In the case of the projects in Usme and San Carlos, the past use of land, stakeholders’ expectations about production, and historic commitment to the defense of the environment and the territory are core elements that affect implementation and results. These elements are essential for guaranteeing the success of the initiatives and their sustainability after the project period ends. Context Factors Affecting Implementation (Q2) Adjusting to a different variety of lettuce caused difficulties for producers of this inclusive linkage. As discussed earlier in this report, Usme is a mostly rural area (85.9% of the locality), with agricultural lands suited mainly to growing potatoes and peas (49% and 11% of the total agricultural production of the locality, respectively). There are small fields of lima beans, white and green onions, artichokes, cilantro, 70 Defensoría del Pueblo. (October 21, 2019). Defensoría alerta ante confinamiento de 2.250 personas en Bojayá (Chocó). Sistema de Alertas Tempranas. URL: https://www.defensoria.gov.co/es/nube/comunicados/8850/Defensor%C3%ADa-alerta-ante-confinamiento-de-2250- personas-en-Bojay%C3%A1-(Choc%C3%B3)-Bojay%C3%A1-confinamiento-Defensor%C3%ADa.htm 44 and some fruits, including strawberries, blackberries, and tree tomatoes, among others. 71 Despite the farmers' prior knowledge of agriculture, they were not able to reduce the risks and avoid the initial losses, the cost of which the beneficiaries assumed. The cost of introducing products from outside of the territory (tudela lettuce originates in Spain) significantly increases when producers lack sufficient information, and therefore requires greater adaptive efforts to implement and sustain the initiatives in the medium and long-term. Although the technical support from the partners allowed the project to overcome these issues, C-AME concluded that these projects must consider the potential effects of incorporating unfamiliar products without adequately preparing the beneficiary communities. Context Factors Affecting Results (Q3) In the San Carlos case, the socio-environmental agenda and the discourse surrounding the defense of natural resources and the environment have affected project results. The San Carlos environmental agenda emerged from civic and social movements, which, since the 1970s, have addressed issues such as deforestation, ecosystem degradation, the effects of intensive cattle ranching, and confrontation among stakeholders for resources. 72 Many of these issues persist and present new challenges that, according to the San Carlos Municipal Development Plan,73 include matters such as recovering deforested areas, overgrazing, illegal mining, water scarcity, and reforestation policy to reduce the greenhouse effect and help mitigate climate change. Social organizations and movements have also addressed the environmental effects of hydroelectric substations in the area. AFRICOLMENAS, an initiative promoted by formerly displaced farmers, has introduced environmental slogans in its mission and organizational documents and emphasized the need to work within the solidarity economy to promote community wellbeing. The AFRICOLMENAS intervention faced difficulties reconciling the financial incentives of the initiative with the beneficiaries’ views of the socio-environmental importance of beekeeping in their territory. This conflict had a negative effect on the project's immediate results as well as the results at the Theory of Change level. According to F. ANDI, AFRICOLMENAS project implementation has faced limitations due to environmental protection and biodiversity conservation agendas from the organization of producers, developed through its community history and previous financing experiences. According to information 71 Alcaldía Local de Usme. Plan Ambiental Local (PAL) 2017-2020. Localidad de Usme. Bogotá 72 Grupo de Memoria Histórica, Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación (CNRR). (2011). San Carlos: Memorias del éxodo en la guerra. Bogotá: Ediciones Semana – Taurus. 73 Alcaldía Municipal de San Carlos, Antioquia. (2012). Plan de Desarrollo Municipal 2012-2015: “Unidos construyendo el San Carlos que queremos”. URL: http://www.sancarlos￾antioquia.gov.co/Transparencia/PlaneacionGestionyControl/Plan%20de%20Desarrollo.pdf -We didn't know that variety [tudela], we were growing other varieties, but that one we didn't [...]. At the time of starting the project there were many shortcomings because it is a product that was not available in the area, that was not known and we didn’t know how it was handled and it has been a process based on experience. At the beginning, we lost a lot of [lettuce] because it was attacked by many bugs or because we were not managing it properly. -We are very badly affected by the winter; the lettuce does not come out with the same strength [...]. Since it is a new product in the region, you think that lettuce is the same type as the other one and it is not like that. This is a summer lettuce [...]. So, when the winter season came, we lost a lot [...]. We lost about 5,000 lettuces, which for us represents 5 million pesos in three months [Focus group dialogue with beneficiaries of the Home Burgers - Small Lettuce Producers project. Bogotá, October 2019]. 45 gathered by C-AME, F. ANDI’s perception of the association's environmental objectives has generated doubts regarding the capacities and willingness of producers to continue in the project. This has undermined the confidence of not only F. ANDI but also the potential buyer (Nutresa), which has hindered the development of a commercial agreement. According to F. ANDI, the beneficiaries lack the expertise and vision necessary to compromise on the price of honey and see the advantages of having a large partner like Nutresa. According to F. ANDI, producers do not see themselves as an agricultural business with medium and long-term growth projections, but rather as a force for environmental protection in the context of their territory’s legacy of environmental discourses. However, these narratives are part of a broader territorial agenda in which social movements and organizations have historically participated. The AFRICOLMENAS project has assumed the existence of a consensus between the interested parties. This prioritizes the association’s entry into industrial honey production as its end goal, rather than prioritizing encounters that can lead to reconciliation between the inhabitants and the corporate sector.74 F. ANDI's opinion of the producers’ organization leads them to ignore the fact that their rhetoric and trajectory define their social and territorial identity. Topics like environmental protection and forest restoration are central objectives for the producers. Perceptions about producers make it difficult for Nutresa and AFRICOLMENAS to reach agreements. Therefore, promoting improbable dialogues, a basic axis of the reconciliation process covered in the Reconciliation Activity Theory of Change, would require reciprocal recognition and equality between the parties. The first step is acknowledging the producers' accomplishments and their connection to the historic territorial demands of the municipality. Without this acknowledgement, the execution of future shared projects among the participants would be ineffective. THE CONTEXT OF THE RECONCILIATION ACTIVITY IN URBAN AREAS OF INTERVENTION Some dynamics in urban areas also affect implementation of the Reconciliation Activity and its results. In rural areas, environmental factors and distance between the countryside and the cities are the main limiting factors. In urban areas, economic and social dynamics can limit success of interventions. The populations of Buenaventura and Medellín experience restricted access to rights because of policies that have caused social and economic inequality. This has been deepened by the violence of the armed conflict and the vulnerability of certain social groups, like those who benefit from PAR’s interventions. Following its review of partner, beneficiary, and context stakeholder narratives, the C-AME team identified two main contextual factors that affect implementation and results in PAR’s urban initiatives: 1) Youth vulnerability and 2) Empowerment and a legacy of strong social movements. While these elements are external factors that can have detrimental effects on the trajectory of interventions and results, not all factors have negative implications; in some cases, they can have a positive influence. These positive factors can help us understand the successful adaptive processes that may be replicated in similar interventions, such as lessons learned. YOUTH VULNERABILITY CRC's project with at-risk youth in Medellín is impacted by contextual, structural, and cultural factors that influence the lives of youth in the city. Young people in Medellín are affected by various conditions such as high rates of homicide, recruitment by legal and illegal armed groups, forced displacement, 74 The concept of improbable refers to actors who, in the past, have been divided by war and who have experienced different forms of suffering. In addition, unlikely dialogues occur between actors and groups that perceived themselves as enemies and have managed to take a step forward to dismantle perceptions of mutual threat and (re)build relationships. 46 disappearance, and sexual violence, among others75 (CNMH, 2017). These factors have affected the population’s perception of young people and the image that youth present of themselves. Contextual Factors Affecting Implementation (Q2) Youth vulnerability in Medellín affects the beneficiaries and the project’s implementation by limiting youth participation in project activities. Territorial structural issues outside of PAR’s control, such as poverty, social exclusion, presence of armed actors, organized crime, violence, drug trafficking, and micro trafficking shape the environment in which young people live and act.76 The concentration of the armed conflict in Medellín turned the youth into a highly stigmatized and vulnerable population, complicated by the notion that youth are both aggressors and victims of violence. Gaps in education and access to the labor market reflect youth vulnerability. The average number of years of schooling for young people in low-income homes in the city is 10.3; most youth have not completed high school. Youth unemployment in Medellín in 2018 was 19.8%, according to the Report on Life Quality in Medellín (2019), and 18.4% of the young people in the city are neither in school nor in the labor market, which reduces upwards social mobility. These social challenges are exacerbated by a value system based on the popular collective idea of “easy money” and the normalization of criminal practices, which have bolstered youth participation in illegal markets, drug trafficking networks, and armed groups in the territories.77 From an early age, young people join “combos barriales” 78 or neighborhood gangs, where they take on surveillance and transport responsibilities until they eventually rise through the organization’s hierarchy. Project implementers and partners are aware of the challenges for beneficiary youth returning to their families, neighborhoods, and communities once interventions conclude. The social conditions in their communities remain dangerous and can incentivize young people to return to the illegal activities that got them involved in the criminal activities that landed them in SRPA in the first place. The lack of financial resources, the mental and emotional health of young people, and the use of psychoactive substances, among other factors, can limit beneficiary participation in the project. C-AME addressed these factors during interviews with the project’s psychosocial professionals, who indicated that the socio-economic characteristics of the target population limit the effectiveness of the intervention model and require adjustment. Similarly, mental illness and family problems also limit youth participation in workshops. Therefore, PAR’s interventions should be integrated with interventions of other institutions providing psycho-emotional attention to young people, identifying opportunities to create protective environments, especially for activities that target vulnerable youth. Project implementers and their partners are aware of the high rate and normalization of drug consumption by beneficiaries in Medellín. Officials of the Young Population Secretary at Medellín City Hall confirmed their awareness of this issue during interviews with the C-AME team and added that the use of psychoactive substances increases youth vulnerability and generates negative incentives for peaceful coexistence. The supply of psychoactive substances attracts young people to potentially violent situations, including criminal gangs that promote the use of drugs to attract young people into illegal activities. 75 Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica (CNMH). (2017). Medellín: memorias de una guerra urbana, CNMH. Bogotá. 76 Ibid, 2017. 77 Ibid, 2017. 78 Organized crime organization with territorial character through which territorial control is exercised and micro￾traffic networks operate. See, Duncan, G. (2018). El crimen más organizado del mundo. Universo Centro. (110) URL: https://www.universocentro.com/NUMERO101/El-crimen-mas-organizado-del-mundo.aspx. 47 The negative effects of drug use are evident in the case of project beneficiaries, some of whom have used drugs regularly from an early age. According to SRPA officials, one of the problems preventing youth participation in project activities was drug use or, in extreme cases, the effects of prolonged use of psychoactive substances, such as withdrawal. Some beneficiaries indicated that young people attended activities under the influence of psychoactive substances. Security is also an important factor for project implementation. Implementers must evaluate the risks involved in carrying out activities with youths in certain areas, due to security conditions. Projects must also consider how the project implementation and engagement of youth beneficiaries may be affected by: membership in potentially rival neighborhood gangs (combos) or sports supporter’s groups (barras bravas); their lack of confidence in peers, authority figures, and public institutions; and difficulty complying with rules. The young beneficiaries’ leadership and commitment to the program and the implementing partners’ efforts to understand the limitations have allowed the initiative to continue. C-AME observed, therefore, that flexibility in planned activities, an understanding of local issues, and beneficiary commitment are all essential elements to consider when implementing projects with vulnerable populations in socially complex areas. EMPOWERMENT AND A LEGACY OF THE POWER OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Previous developmental evaluations have not emphasized contextual factors that lead to lessons learned and promote good practices. This section deals with a context factor that affect implementation and results of the project Memorias in Buenaventura, in which social movements and their impact in local, regional, and national public forums have helped strengthen implementation and have had a positive impact on the achievement of results. Strong coordination between Sueños Reales (as part of the 2017 Civic Strike Committee), implementing partner CNMH, and PAR contributed to successfully solving problems that arose during implementation. 79 The C-AME team believes that this project’s experience will help define some best practices for use in cases when PAR projects work directly with social organizations. Context Factors Affecting Implementation (Q2) Buenaventura's strike committee helped the beneficiaries of the Memorias project solve a challenge that arose during the production of the documentary. The committee is a platform that aligns various organizations and social movements to continue to define, defend, and implement the agreements reached between the government and civil society after the 22-day general strike in Buenaventura in 2017. The correspondence between documentary’s objectives and social movements and organizations’ discourses that are now part of the civic strike committee, favored forms of cooperation between the organizations that make up the committee and the beneficiaries.80 79 A similar situation occurred in Bojayá, where the work of the CNMH and the Bureau of Victims of Bojayá’s Massacre allowed mitigation the unforeseen events listed in the section titled: “Unforeseen Changes in the Institutions and their Impact in the Construction of Confidence”. In this case, the victims’ movement turned into a guarantor and co-executer of the project Historias de vida, preventing administrative gaps and delays in the implementation agenda affecting the results. 80 As seen in the latest communications by Buenaventura’s Civic Strike Committee, there are 252 organizations comprising this platform and that support the actions by the Executive Committee. 48 The documentary highlights the conditions limiting social rights, persistent corruption, and violence from the armed conflict in the municipality. The film’s first producer delayed the preparation of a communications piece and was accused for beneficiaries of discriminatory treatment of local musicians invited to participate in the filming. The civic strike committee’s Bureau of Access to Justice, Victims, Production, and Memory facilitated the process to select a new producer that would meet the beneficiaries’ expectations. According to beneficiaries, they decided to replace the documentary’s producer after it received criticism from social movement participants who went on strike when she attempted to change the script and purpose of the documentary without their approval. The Civic Strike Committee therefore played an important role in responding in a moment of crisis. C-AME found that empowerment and commitment of beneficiaries’ partner organizations, as well as flexibility to consider unexpected factors, are critical to project success in a socially complex area like Buenaventura. Context Factors Affecting Results (Q2) Social movements in Buenaventura have affected how the beneficiaries of the Memorias project view reconciliation and the support they have received to achieve results. The beneficiaries’ narratives contrast with PAR’s theory of change as Fundación Sueños Reales emphasizes social conditions and reconciliation policies while setting aside the individual and interpersonal aspects that other PAR initiatives frequently address. Beneficiary organizations and participants in the social movements, therefore, already possessed skills for organization, advocacy, and self-determination that allowed them to contribute to the achievement of results. According to beneficiaries of the Memorias project, reconciliation initiatives will not succeed by simply raising awareness among people who have never had to defend their demands with force; rather, they must include the participation of armed actors. The most important of these actors is the state, due to its role as a guarantor of rights. For the beneficiaries, the goal of Buenaventura’s civic strike and the resulting agreements is reconciliation and dialogue between the state and the community in order to guarantee human rights. Project beneficiaries understand reconciliation as a long-term, transformative, participatory process where the state must assume the key role as the guarantor institution and involve various social actors, including armed actors, to build peace and guarantee communities’ rights. As indicated in beneficiary narratives, social movements’ discourses influences perceptions of reconciliation and allows for the identification of how PAR's intervention is interpreted as a contribution to reconciliation. This interpretation is one of the most important factors to ensure an initiative achieves results. For the civic strike committee, the documentary represents an opportunity to express the collective demands of Buenaventura’s population and to build awareness, improve social mobility among youth, and reassess local practices, customs, and lifestyles. The civic strike committee’s support was essential for circulating the documentary and for ensuring compliance with its pedagogical and memory functions. While the documentary does not address reconciliation explicitly, the production objectives and positive messages including raising awareness, furthering social issues, and discussing ownership of the rhetoric of past social movements, solidify reconciliation objectives from the perspective of PAR’s theory of change. These movements demonstrate an existence of individual-level reconciliation skills and signal to PAR that in some project contexts, there is sufficient collective ability of advocacy actors to build a more inclusive, participatory, and equitable community as a means to fomenting reconciliation. The projects Memorias and Reconciliation is of the state with the people, it is of the state. And how does one reconcile with the state? Well, through the institutions and in the guarantee of the law. This is what determines that Peace ceases to be a concept of an Agreement and becomes a Territorial Peace Agreement, that is to say, the guarantee of the right [Focus group with beneficiaries of Memories project, Buenaventura, October 2019]. 49 Historias de Vida exemplify the benefits PAR can gain by contributing to the consolidation of community projects. Although the combined efforts of the social movements in the civic strike committee are advantageous for project implementation and results, they also produce unexpected risks that implementers must consider as the armed conflict continues to affect social movements and organizations. According to the website “Las 2 Orillas” (July 4, 2019), a wide variety of armed actors are present in the city, including the Clan del Golfo, the gangs La Local and La Empresa, ELN, and FARC dissidents from the old “Frente 30”, and the extinct urban front Manuel Cepeda Vargas. These actors participate in illegal economies and compete for trade routes. The conflicts between these armed actors result in murders, attacks, and threats against leaders and human rights defenders. Many of the targeted leaders are associated with the civic strike committee, 81 discouraging civic participation in social organizations and, as CNMH officials discussed during interviews with C-AME, obstructing the process of memory reconstruction. The promotion of the leader of the civic strike committee, Victor Hugo Vidal, to Buenaventura’s Town Hall generates greater consensus among the local institutions and social movements, creating an environment more conducive to collaborative initiatives. However, insecurity inhibits the collective ability to strengthen memory mechanisms that help build reconciliation. Armed actors fight over financial and social resources as well as social control in those territories in order to impose their vision about the past and manage all matters of social life. RECOMMENDATIONS AND REFLECTIONS RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC PARTNERS Recommendations for CNMH 1. Unexpected changes in the CNMH such as transformations in the intervention agenda and the replacement of public officials in managerial positions, including the General Director, had negative effects on confidence in public institutions. This was a challenge considering the fractures that have marked the relationship between the community and the state, and the recurrent feeling of abandonment experienced by the beneficiary communities. The administrative vacuum and the lack of personnel authorized to make decisions, in the period in which the CNMH did not have a Director, also generated non-compliance with commitments of international cooperation agreements, including the agreement with PAR. This caused delays in the disbursements of PAR to the CNMH, and from the latter to the operators and local memory managers, which in turn caused delays in implementation. Inconsistent communication to the communities about these delays contributed to strained trust. For projects like those implemented by PAR in Bojayá and Buenaventura, where the strategic partner is a state institution subject to unexpected changes, it is necessary to generate mechanisms to foresee and mitigate these contingencies. For this PAR could consider: - Support the beneficiary community and the mediation processes between it and the state, taking into consideration the double role of the CNMH as a state institution and implementer. This would help 81 The attempted murder of Carlos Tovar becomes relevant here. Tovar is a member of the Bureau of Access to Justice, Victims, Protection and Memory of the Civic Strike Committee, of which several members of Fundación Sueños Reales are also a part. When C-AME visited Buenaventura, Carlos Tovar had been in intensive care for several months due to an attempt on his life, even though that he had previously requested the support of the National Protection Unit upon receiving threats against his life (Semana, July 26, 2019). 50 protect the newly built relationship of trust between communities and public institutions, especially in the case of contingencies, as well as delays in the transfer of resources. PAR could implement the Reconciliation Approach directly with the community, raising awareness about the delays involved in bureaucratic processes and eliminating the perception that there is a lack of political will for the development of the project. - Improve PAR capacity for adaptive management by adjusting the financial and administrative procedures to deal with unforeseen situations that affect working with state institutions like CNMH. In order to do this, PAR should instill adaptive management principles (reaction, resourcefulness, flexibility and self-organization) to reduce delays in execution and their negative effects on community trust in state entities. This means striking a balance between the need to follow internal rules to transfer resources from PAR to strategic partners and the need to react to emerging contextual factors, taking advantage of opportunities by generating creative responses to dynamic shifts. 2. In the early stages of the Memorias project, the company that Sueños Reales selected to produce the documentary caused problems that could only be solved by breaking their contractual agreement several months into the project. The issue led to a delay in the production of the documentary and created tensions among those who participated in the process by providing interviews and recordings for inclusion in the film. To prevent future challenges with contractors, PAR should: - Design capacity-building strategies that consider context factors and potential implementation problems when hiring operators for projects in which beneficiary organizations are inexperienced and have limited resources. The tools that PAR has been building, such as the Organizational Capacities for Reconciliation Index, could be used to identify challenges within organizations. With this data, PAR could define a more accurate strategy for its strategic partners and prioritize capacity building for those with lower scores. Although C-AME is aware of the effort required to carry out this recommendation, it could help PAR identify organizations that need additional support, concentrating efforts and resources on organizations that have greater organizational capacities. 3. The difference between the way the beneficiary communities of Buenaventura and PAR understand reconciliation reveals a useful area for dialogue between the interested parties. PAR and partners must mediate between the need for capacity building at the individual and interpersonal levels, and the beneficiary organizations’ expectations of advocacy at the social and political levels. This mediation is necessary because for beneficiaries, reconciliation requires the participation of actors who played an active role in the armed conflict. Beneficiaries are therefore skeptical of initiatives that attribute the duty to reconcile to people who have never participated directly in the conflict. Accordingly, C-AME recommends that PAR: - Strengthen the uptake of the Reconciliation Approach by the strategic partner CNMH and use dialogue mechanisms to improve beneficiaries’ understanding of and willingness to participate in memory reconstruction activities. This would contribute to the strategic partner having greater tools to raise awareness with actors in all links of the intervention chain, regarding the need to recognize reconciliation as a process involving all social actors, at all levels. - Enable spaces for dialogue to discuss different concepts of reconciliation, the agents involved, and their respective roles within the process. This will allow PAR to capture beneficiaries’ understanding of reconciliation, one that builds upon the idea that the state has the task to contribute to reinstatement of people’s rights (after exclusion and/or violation of rights), acknowledging that the state has a role as agent of reconciliation rather than administrators of reconciliation exclusively. Recommendations for F. ANDI 51 1. The positioning of agribusiness in the market requires the supply of quality products in sufficient volumes that meet specific standards. Producers from lettuce and strawberry inclusive linkage projects highlighted that technical assistance provided through the intervention allowed them to improve capacity to manage their crops and enhance post-harvest processes, and therefore respond to buyers’ demands. However, in the beginning of the project the crop quality and volume were inconsistent for producers. They faced multiple losses before they reached minimum quality standards, increased production and improved yield, a learning process that took a significant amount of time and implied costs for the producers. C-AME therefore issues the following recommendations: - In projects that are introducing new types of crops that producers are not accustomed to, early in the implementation, technical assistance should raise awareness and provide specific information to producers about expected volume and quality standards. This information should be the basis for designing the work plan and implementing the project activities. On one hand, F. ANDI should identify early in the implementation specific goals and activities when seeking to respond to one buyer’s demand; and on the other, PAR could extend monitoring mechanisms to identify lessons learned, and to determine whether project activities are effectively contributing to the achievement of program goals. For instance, PAR could implement strategies such as outcome mapping to expand these monitoring processes. - Given that F. ANDI and producers of lettuce and strawberries acknowledged that inclusive linkages use a trial and error process, the implementer should anticipate risks and losses. Otherwise, producers will assume these costs (see Context analysis, social and economic characteristics of the territories), as was the case for the lettuce and strawberry producers. Absorbing unexpected financial burdens could have a negative impact on producers’ commitment to the project, and could affect their socioeconomic conditions. Methods for minimizing risks include assisting producers to identify and access protections such as crop insurance. 2. Despite success establishing a commercial relationship in two of the four inclusive linkage projects, producers still feel they do not have enough bargaining power when negotiating with the buyer. This could be an indicator of producers’ lack of empowerment. In this regard, C-AME encourages PAR to use its current monitoring devices to ensure F. ANDI is using inclusive linkages toward the larger program goal, which is “Colombians taking action towards reconciliation.” As empowerment is one of the drivers of reconciliation, producers expressing lack of bargaining power when facing their only buyer could become an obstacle towards building reconciliation. - As part of project activities, F. ANDI should clarify the scope of the intervention with producers, in particular the local barriers that exist (i.e. geographic distance from larger markets, difficulties accessing financial resources, lack of access to public infrastructure and utilities) which implementation is not going to help address. Having this information could help producers plan and invest resources more effectively, which could contribute to empowerment in this context. Since F. ANDI strives to empower vulnerable producers as a long-term process, it is important to establish clear expectations between F. ANDI and the producers. - The use of the Reconciliation Approach, combined with technical tools such as pricing, quality standards, and mechanisms to dispute potential conflicts between the buyer and the producers, could enhance producers’ negotiation abilities. - Further, PAR and its partners should facilitate a mentality change to encourage participants to focus more on the program’s goal of reconciliation to ensure that agriculturally focused projects really are contributing to the drivers of reconciliation. This means vulnerable producers should be aware of their role not only as economic agents, but also as social and political agents. Focusing on their role as economic agents only, without considering their role as members of their wider communities, could lead to disengagement from these roles that are critical for building reconciliation. F. ANDI can 52 support entrepreneurship while also using the tools available in the PAR’s Reconciliation Approach Toolkit, emphasizing the message that improving economic opportunities can be a step toward reconciliation. 3. The goal of the Hub’s inclusive linkages strategy is to “improve the quality of life of vulnerable populations traditionally excluded from market dynamics, facilitating the inclusion of their productive organizations in the value chains of the buyer companies through inclusive linkages.”82 However, F. ANDI interventions designed in support of this objective are not always sensitive to the type of producers they work with, which creates two related problems. First, there is a focus on the development of a commercial relationship with wholesale buyers or large restaurant chains located far from the point of production, without considering alternative buyers in local markets. Second, the cases C-AME evaluated were attempting to build a commercial relationship between an association of vulnerable producers and one buyer or a cluster of buyers. In all cases, F. ANDI identified the buyer and potential sellers. This has the potential to lead producers to overspecialize in certain crops at the expense of building their diversified resilience, and under these circumstances, there is a risk of the consolidation of a permanent monopsony. 83 This, in turn, may affect producers’ capacity to develop their full economic and social potential. As such, C-AME recommends that PAR consider: - Supporting alternative, local markets that leverage the agro-ecological capacities and community values that some of the organizations have developed in their immediate communities (i.e. AFRICOLMENAS and Sembradoras de Vida). The National Policy for Farmers, Family, and Community Agriculture84 offers some insights about alternatives to expand markets when the producer falls into the “peasant, family and community” farmer category.85 The policy indicates the important role of local markets for this type of producer, through alternatives such as short marketing circuits, 86 accessing local farmers markets, and public procurement. The latter is already happening in Bojayá. - C-AME encourages PAR and F. ANDI to develop strategies to identify additional buyers and provide technical support to improve producer communities’ resilience when entering competitive markets. By considering the type of producers, PAR and F. ANDI (as well as CRC) could explore alternative markets and buyers as means to reduce the risk of the monopsony that the inclusive linkages are creating. Facing reduced market barriers, producers will be better positioned to improve their socioeconomic conditions, and this economic empowerment can contribute to reconciliation skills. 82 Fundación ANDI. (2017). Hub de Alianzas para la Competitividad Inclusiva. Manual Operativo de Encadenamientos Inclusivos. P. 13 83 Monopsony is an imperfect competitive market where demand is concentrated in a single buyer. This condition of trade imbalance gives greater market power to the buyer, who can set the price of the good at a lower value than it would have in a competitive market. (Nicholson, W., Snyder, C. (2010). Intermediate microeconomics (11th edition). South Western Cengage Learning.) 84 Resolution number 464, 2017 from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. 85 According to the Res. 464/2017, the subjects of the ACFC policy meet the following criteria: (1) Predominance of agricultural economic activity, developed directly. (2) Predominant use of family or community labor; at least 50% of the labor employed in the productive unit must be provided by the household or ethnic community to which it belongs. (3) Maximum extension of the productive unit equivalent to one (1) family agricultural unit (FAU) of the corresponding relatively homogeneous zone. (4) Residing or living within a functional perimeter of the farm, or collective territory, from which their livelihoods are derived. 86 According to ECLAC (2014), short marketing circuits “are a form of trade based on the direct sale of [local] fresh or seasonal products without intermediaries - or by minimizing intermediation - between producers and consumers. Proximity circuits bring farmers closer to the consumer, promote humane treatment, and their products, by not being transported over long distances [...] generate a lower environmental impact" 53 Recommendations for the CRC-Youth Initiative 1. Implementers highlighted the combination of DecidoSer and LRNC methodologies as a positive aspect of the initiative. However, as mentioned in the implementation analysis, this had shortcomings in its implementation. C-AME considers that there was a valuable effort to make a methodological transfer between PAR and its partner CRC, and from the latter internally to bring the methodologies closer together. However, according to what was observed about the implementation of the pilot project, with an eye toward replication, it is recommended to strengthen this methodological harmonization. A more comprehensive methodology would benefit both from the knowledge of the implementing partner and the operator of the work with youth from SRPA, and from the potential of the drivers of the PAR reconciliation approach. A workshop that gathers the experiences of the psychosocial support professionals who participated in the pilot can be useful to identify achievements and challenges of integrating both methodologies. 2. The pilot project revealed difficulties due to the dependence on administrative procedures that require a long and hierarchical chain for approvals. In this regard, PAR can support CRC to adapt its internal initiatives and timelines through (i) protocols that allow them to make some faster decisions in case of contingencies; (ii) thorough pre-planning processes that take into account the rigid bureaucratic procedures that demand a lot of time, in order not to delay the implementation of the project; (iii) communication channels that allow a more fluid dialogue between the different entities and enable constant feedback. 3. According to the implementers, the project yielded positive outcomes in terms of commitment from young participants. However, the way in which the subjects of intervention were selected (convenience sample) may lead to biases in the identification of the effects of the intervention, which limit the capacity of the implementers to determine intervention effectiveness. For this reason, C-AME suggests considering this factor when delivering pilot results, since it affects the capacity to verify possible effects of the intervention on the overall SRPA population and to determine the replicability of this experience. STRATEGIC RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SUSTAINABILITY 1. Integrate the Reconciliation Approach with the methodologies of the strategic partners As detailed in the body of this DE, there is an uneven implementation of the Reconciliation Approach across strategic partners and its projects. The case of CRC showed integration of its own reconciliatory approach methodology, La Reconciliación es Nuestro Cuento, with PAR’s Reconciliation Approach (i.e. DecidoSer and Gender and Social Inclusion strategies). The project implemented with vulnerable farmers from AFRICOLMENAS in San Carlos showed the integration and balance between productive and reconciliatory components. The CNMH and PAR alliances sought to strengthen truth and memory mechanisms with state and non￾state actors. The projects evaluated in this DE are two memory initiatives of civic organizations seeking to reconstruct memories of the harm caused by the armed conflict, social exclusion, and lack of state support for vulnerable citizens. Given the nature of the initiatives, there was a strong focus on the use of memory reconstruction methodologies developed and implemented by CNMH with project beneficiaries. Despite the relevance and strength of CNMH’s methodology, however, C-AME could not identify evidence of implementation of PAR’s Reconciliation Approach into the projects implemented under the PAR-CNMH alliance. The absence of the Reconciliation Approach with beneficiaries of CNMH’s initiatives in Bojayá and Buenaventura led the implementer to miss opportunities to manage unforeseen situations and raise awareness regarding the role of citizens and the state in reconciliation efforts. In Bojayá, abrupt 54 changes within CNMH affected the re-building of trust between beneficiaries and state institutions. This represents a missed opportunity for building reconciliation between the participants of the activities, and between the communities and state and social institutions. F. ANDI’s inclusive linkages evaluated by C-AME showed improvements accessing technical assistance and developing or starting to develop commercial relationships, but very little improvement regarding reconciliation skills, except for those attending workshops from previous PAR interventions. C-AME could not find evidence of implementation of reconciliation components either through PAR’s Reconciliation Approach or F. ANDI’s Plan de Vida methodology. There are multiple examples of the problematic lack of the reconciliatory component in F. ANDI initiatives. For instance, most of farmer groups indicated that their productive capacities have improved, but they feel they do not have the bargaining power to negotiate with sellers, which indicates lack of empowerment on the beneficiary’s part. Other group of producers devolved into arguments regarding the lack of shared vision for their organization, and the way they interacted demonstrated lack of dialogue skills and respect for one another. Another group expressed that the inclusive linkage would allow women to remain at home without affecting their traditional roles associated with domestic labor, something that beneficiaries highlighted as a positive project outcome with no regard for gender equality. Although the collaborative process allowed participants to develop some skills like trust, this was due to the business model rather than the implementation of the Reconciliation Approach. PAR asserts that part of the reconciliation strategy involves the transfer of the Reconciliation Approach methodology for further implementation by partners, but workshops with beneficiaries fall under the implementer’s control, and are therefore difficult for PAR to oversee directly. - In general, C-AME uncovered a valuable window of opportunity for increased oversight of the reconciliatory component among partners and beneficiaries of projects from strategic partners. - Given the different levels of integration and achievements in terms of reconciliation, PAR should prioritize discussing with strategic partners to provide and receive feedback on what are (if any) the potential elements that are preventing partners from fully integrating the Reconciliation Approach into their activities with PAR beneficiaries. Such a conversation may provide useful feedback to both parties regarding their capacity to adapt their own methodologies and, more importantly, ensure that the reconciliatory component is the cornerstone of each intervention. 2. Increase awareness about the possibility of emotional distress when working with victims of the armed conflict The memory initiatives implemented by CNMH successfully promoted community-based coping mechanisms with the beneficiaries in Bojayá. However, beneficiaries’ “open wounds” caused suffering during the memory reconstruction activities. During some of the activities, there was emotional overload that the facilitators could not handle effectively, resulting in delays in implementation, while the facilitators applied emotional recovery strategies before continuing. While local memory managers and leaders in the community were able to help those affected, C-AME suggests that PAR and its partners: - Promote access to local resources for psychological support for beneficiaries in order to properly treat difficult emotional responses and expand possibilities for individual and collective healing. To this end, implementers could build alliances with psychosocial care programs, or with institutions that are empowered to carry out this type of intervention. Although psychological care is beyond PAR’s direct management capacity, in future interventions addressing traumatic experiences—as in the case of the Historias de vida project—it is important to foresee possible psycho-emotional effects that activities may have, and anticipate ways to help participants process them. 55 - In project planning, consider the possibility of extending implementation times to deal with emotional distress from victims. This would be especially important in memory reconstruction processes, in which the majority of beneficiaries are victims of the armed conflict. 3. Identify strategies to implement the Reconciliation Approach with families and close networks of direct participants in implementation Consistent with C-AME’s findings from previous developmental evaluations, as well as in the alliance between PAR and CRC for psychosocial support for at-risk youth, beneficiaries and engaged stakeholders suggest that implementation of the Reconciliation Approach should involve relatives, close network members, and communities in the psychosocial support and reconciliation activities. Engaging actors other than project participants is critical for the improvement of social opportunities and is relevant for building reconciliation in communities. It is important to mention that this was not a specific objective of the activity, but it is evident that this is pivotal for reconciliation and especially for the youth-community reintegration process. A critical problem young offenders face is the lack of trust in their parents and family. Therefore, in order to rebuild the social fabric, their close family circle could be involved in psychosocial support sessions designed specifically to enhance relationships and support networks for rehabilitating youth offenders. 4. Continue working with beneficiaries, implementing partners, and stakeholders to increase awareness about gender disparities Projects in rural areas evaluated in this iteration have taken advantage of PAR’s previous work with beneficiary communities, including the integration of men and women in productive activities and prior awareness of gender topics. However, C-AME observed that in F. ANDI-led interventions, there was a discontinuation of the work on gender issues, which makes it harder to change narratives regarding gender equality, empowerment of women, and LGBTI inclusion. In the case of Bojayá, the joint work between PAR and APLAMEDA in 2017 increased awareness of gender inequality. Perhaps due to this lack of continuity in the implementation of the Gender and Social Inclusion strategy, C-AME identified narratives that still use patriarchal language in their discussion of women and gender issues, which is an issue PAR should continue working to address. - All implementers should apply the Gender and Social Inclusion Strategy consistently per USAID ADS 205. Accordingly, all participating implementers must contribute to promoting gender equality, empowerment of women, and LGBTI inclusion, even if the implementer changes or transitions to a different intervention. Cultural changes do not occur over short periods; rather, they are most effective when the intervention consistently addresses gender topics. This consistency allows interventions to go beyond simply including women in project activities, but also promote respect for women, reflection on masculinity, and gender equality. Resuming systematic work to reduce gender inequality is fundamental for preserving reconciliation skills and awareness previously acquired. 5. Develop strategies to address connector problems: social and economic vulnerability of rural communities Agricultural producers face significant challenges to improving their capacity to increase production and output. Many of these challenges relate to precarious socio-economic conditions—the same reason for which they were selected to participate in the project. Smallholder vulnerable farmers experience high levels of poverty, geographic isolation, lack of knowledge about the financial system and its procedures, low borrowing capacity, low rates of banking penetration, low credit scores, poor entrepreneurial skills, limited access to new technologies, insufficient commercial capacities, and aging populations. In order to guarantee the sustainability of the market-focused reconciliation initiatives, the inclusive linkage model could take into consideration financial inclusion approaches such as the following: 56 - Identify financial institutions that offer associative credit lines, seeking to adapt their conditions to the socio-cultural and agro-ecological realities of vulnerable smallholder farmers and the places where they live. Based on the credit capacity of the organizations, these associative credit lines could support the purchase of machinery, infrastructure, and equipment. The model can also identify credit lines for working capital and land purchases, with flexible criteria and conditions that respond producers’ needs. - Connect producers with local extension services that support producers to develop short-term financial education plans and capacity to generate necessary resources for the producers to be able to meet their financial obligations. - Connect producers with financial institutions, economic solidarity organizations, and donor-funded development projects that offer financial assistance, to identify means for accessing to credit, savings, and insurance. - Identify specific credit lines for low-income rural women, and head of household women victims, and facilitate connections between beneficiaries and these services. 6. Identify allies in the sector of science, innovation, and technology One of the issues identified in the implementation of productive initiatives is the limited access smallholder vulnerable farmers have to continuous technical assistance and technology. In Colombia, Unidades Municipales de Asistencia Técnica Agropecuaria87 (UMATAs) manage rural extension services, sometimes with support entities like SENA and rarely, regional universities. Although PAR is not responsible for improving rural extension services, evidence from this developmental evaluation shows that lack of access to these services could affect farmers’ capacity to improve socioeconomic opportunities, and limit the project’s ability to ensure expected outcomes as part of the overall PAR program. C-AME recommends that: - PAR and its partners identify potential allies from the science, technology, and innovation fields to complement available extension services, build upon activities to develop technology-based tools, and improve access to information about crop management, marketing, and market opportunities. One example of these potential opportunities is the work of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (referred to using its Spanish acronym, CIAT) using artificial intelligence to develop agricultural decision support systems using mobile apps for crop monitoring, rapid control, and mitigation efforts.88 Projects can leverage these innovations to connect smallholder vulnerable farmers with critical information for crop management, post-harvest, and marketing opportunities.89 Access to extension services and technology can be a strategy to improve economic and social opportunities for vulnerable smallholder farmers, and therefore contribute to their empowerment and to reconciliation processes, as PAR details in its theory of change. THEORY OF CHANGE REFLECTIONS The scope of PAR’s activities, including the strategic partners’ initiatives, should be aligned with the PAR ToC. According to PAR’s ToC, the transformative alliances form the basis for activities that will deliver one or more of the following results: 1) increased economic opportunities, 2) increased social opportunities, 3) greater awareness of the importance of reconciliation, and 4) improved abilities for 87 Municipal Agricultural Technical Assistance Units in English 88 https://ciat.cgiar.org/phenomics-platform/tumaini/ 89 Protopop, Iuliia & Shanoyan, Aleksan. (2016). Big Data and Smallholder Farmers: Big Data Applications in the Agri-Food Supply Chain in Developing Countries. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, Vol. 19(A), pages, 1-18, June. 57 reconciliation. These results contribute to Colombians’ actions towards reconciliation only so long as the activities strengthen the four reconciliation drivers: dialogue, trust, respect, and empowerment. For reference, PAR’s ToC is included as Figure 5 below. Figure 5 PAR's Theory of Change Graphic PAR is based on the theory that if the activities produce awareness about reconciliation, social and economic opportunities, and tangible reconciliation abilities, all with a reconciliation lens and dedicated Reconciliation Approach, then these will contribute to behavior change toward reconciliation. C-AME has already identified in previous sections the implementation challenges that stemmed from incomplete transfer of the Reconciliation Approach, however, evidence from this DE supports the conclusion that this is not just a challenge of implementation, but one that represents a disconnect between program ToC and activity design and implementation. In observing the eight projects for this DE, the C-AME team identified two critical gaps that have the potential to limit PAR activities’ contribution to the overall program objective. Analyses of these ToC gaps are displayed graphically in Figure 6 and detailed below. 58 Figure 6 Gaps in PAR ToC Limited transfer of Reconciliation Approach to beneficiaries. According to the program description, PAR’s initiatives, including those with F. ANDI, CNMH, and CRC, incorporate the Reconciliation Approach as a “differentiating factor.” Although PAR transferred their Reconciliation Approach toolkit to the implementing partners, the C-AME team’s fieldwork did not reveal evidence of the uptake of key reconciliation concepts by the beneficiaries of the F. ANDI and CNMH90 projects.91 Although the design phases of these initiatives showed at least notional commitment to the reconciliation effort, F. ANDI and CNMH suspended or reduced the use of the Reconciliation Approach when they began implementation.92 Per PAR’s ToC, the strategic alliances with partners such as F. ANDI, CNMH, and CRC are effective at leading Colombians to take action on reconciliation if and only if implementers incorporate the Reconciliation Approach consistently in their interventions and employ it with beneficiaries and their families and communities, if necessary. Partners must therefore design and implement aspects of their 90 In the case of CRC, an adaptation of the Reconciliation Approach merged as a hybrid with the LRNC methodology, which was implemented in its interventions. 91 Participants from AFRICOLMENAS in San Carlos and APLAMEDA in Bojayá attended Reconciliation Approach workshops through the alliance between PAR and CRC, and PAR and APLAMEDA, respectively. 92 In the case of F. ANDI, the transfer of the Reconciliation Approach occurred in scope of work between PAR and APLAMEDA. In the case of CNMH, the Reconciliation Approach was transferred between PAR and FUNDESCODES, some members of which participated in the Memorias project, implemented by Sueños Reales in Buenaventura. 59 interventions that specifically relate to reconciliation and, regardless of the type of project, ensure that promoting reconciliation is the ultimate objective. Develop strategies to adapt activities to “common unresolved issues” to ensure reconciliation outcomes. Several common, unresolved issues often arise as gaps in the causal relationship depicted in Figure 6 above by slowing or blocking reconciliation. Issues such as violence, the presence of armed actors, illegal economies, structural poverty, youth unemployment, and drug consumption, among others, have affected the reconciliation processes attempted in PAR programming. While C-AME is aware that the majority of these contextual problems are outside PAR’s scope of work, they may represent an opportunity for the program to strengthen its mechanisms for adapting to these factors, and therefore create mitigation strategies that reduce negative effects on program results. CNMH and CRC have been more aware of and responsive to these common unresolved issues. In the CNMH project, the presence of armed actors in Bojayá and Buenaventura has been a blocking factor for memory practices and for the empowerment of local social leaders, as these organizations and leaders are often targets of intimidation, threats, and persecution. In the case of the CRC, the young beneficiaries of the project implemented in the SRPA framework in Medellín have limitations when it comes to building and realizing life pathways away from crime because of youth recruitment to armed groups, drug consumption, presence of criminal gangs, and lack of social and economic opportunities. The lack of opportunities becomes more acute when considered jointly with the persistence of stigmatizing narratives that justify the exclusion of youth offenders from socially valuable spaces. Therefore, the anticipation and adaptive management of common unresolved problems conditions the scope of the Reconciliation Activity, so it must be anticipated in the planning of the initiatives and in the design of specific measures for mitigating risk associated with these context factors. Per PAR’s ToC, the strategic alliances with partners such as F. ANDI, CNMH, and CRC are effective at leading Colombians to take action on reconciliation if and only if PAR and its strategic partners take into consideration the “common unresolved issues” and develop mechanisms for adapting to improve program effectiveness. Principles of adaptive management and context monitoring can support this effort. A-1 ANNEX A: LIST OF PROJECTS EVALUATED IN THIS ITERATION Strategic Partner City PAR Code Project Name Participants Implementation Dates CNMH Buenaventura PAR￾01- 011 Memorias para Vivir con Dignidad Fundación Sueños Reales December 2018 – October 2019 CNMH Bojayá PAR￾01- 011 Historias de Vida de las Víctimas Mortales de la Masacre de Bojayá Victims of the 2002 massacre March 2018 – November 2019 F. ANDI Bogotá – Usme PAR￾02- 003G Encadenamiento Inclusivo entre Home Burgers y productores de lechuga tudela en Usme Fundación Guiando Territorio AGROSUMAR - Colectivo Sembradoras de Vida January 2017 – April 2019 F. ANDI Bogotá - Usme PAR￾02- 003G Encadenamiento inclusivo entre Crepes & Waffles y productores de Fresa Corporación Red Mujer September 2017 – April 2019 F. ANDI San Carlos PAR￾02- 003G Miel Suroriente de Antioquia. Encadenamiento inclusivo entre Nutresa y productores de Miel AFRICOLMENAS N/A F. ANDI Bojayá PAR￾02- 003G Encadenamiento inclusivo de plátano con APLAMEDA, asociación de familias productoras de plátano de Bojayá APLAMEDA February 2019 – N/A CRC Medellín PAR￾01- 006G La Reconciliacion Es Nuestro Cuento y DecidoSer En Medellín. Implementación con Jóvenes del Sistema de Responsabilidad Penal Adolescente Youth from the juvenile criminal responsibility system attending to the Fundación Luis Amigó Center (ICBF) August 2019 - November 2019 CRC San Carlos PAR￾01- 006G Fortalecimiento Productivo y Comunitario de la Asociación de Apicultores Biológicos de San Carlos, AFRICOLMENAS AFRICOLMENAS April 2018 – October 2018 B-1 ANNEX B: LIST OF SECONDARY SOURCES USED FOR THE CONTEXT ANALYSIS Type Name of institution Public institutions5 Alcaldía de Bojayá Alcaldía de Medellín Alcaldía Municipal de San Carlos Alcaldía Local de Usme Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica (CNMH) Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación (CNRR) Corporación Autónoma Regional de Cundinamarca Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE) Gobernación de Antioquia Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales (IDEAM) Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt Secretaría Distrital de Planeación Secretaría Distrital de Salud Private organizations Consejo Privado de Competitividad Fundación ANDI (F. ANDI) Think tanks Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz (INDEPAZ) Non-government and non-profit organizations Fundación Universidad Externado de Colombia Programa Somos Defensores Media outlets El Colombiano El Espectador El Tiempo Las2orillas KienyKe Semana Verdad Abierta C-1 ANNEX C: SUMMARY OF IMPLEMENTATION FINDINGS National Strategic Partners Target Popu￾lation ACHIEVEMENTS CHALLENGES ACHIEVEMENTS CHALLENGES ACHIEVEMENTS CHALLENGES CNMH Afro-Colombian organizations ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREA: MEMORY RECONCILIATION PROCESSES GENDER ISSUES Collective memory, individual memory and "Memoria viva"; Rebuilding the social fabric and strengthening collective action; Acknowledging cultural practices following guidelines for inclusion and intergenerational interaction. Limited psychological support to victims; Inadequate selection of the first production company in Memorias' project. Strengthening community links based on dialogue and respect. Partial methodological transfer and adaptation of PAR's Reconciliation Approach; Persistent distrust in government __ __ F. ANDI Smallholder vulnerable farmers ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREA: INCLUSIVE LINKAGES RECONCILIATION PROCESSES GENDER ISSUES Crosscutting technical assistance led to improved capacity to manage agricultural production; Enhanced logistics for better quality and lower costs; Identification (and in some cases consolidation) of commercial partnerships; Organizational improvements. Implications of adapting new crops among vulnerable producers; Lack of alternative markets and marketing capacities; Socio￾economic conditions limiting implementing agents' expectations; Lack of common ground to reach a commercial agreement. Trust and respect derived from engaging in teamwork. Partial methodological transfer and adaptation of the Reconciliation Approach. Productive alliances promoted gender inclusion. Partial methodological transfer and adaptation of the Reconciliation Approach-Gender and Social Inclusion. C-2 CRC-Africolmenas Smallholder vulnerable farmers ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREA: PRODUCTIVE STRENGTHENING RECONCILIATION PROCESSES GENDER ISSUES Improved conditions for beekeeping and honey production; Awareness about environmental features of beekeeping. Limited capacity to address systemic barriers of producers. Producers acquired reconciliation skills; Awareness about the importance of collaborative work. Weakness in the driver empowerment. Increased awareness about gender issues. __ CRC-Youth At-risk youth from urban areas ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREA: PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT RECONCILIATION PROCESSES GENDER ISSUES Implemented methodology achieved disassociation from obligation; Increased trust among peers and towards facilitators; Integration of DecidoSer; Participants' engagement resulted in the beginning of emotional awareness. Obstacles to fully integrate DecidoSer and LRNC; Operator workload and institutional coordination; Biased selection of project beneficiaries. Problem area relates to Reconciliation Processes. Progress in overcoming imaginarios and prejudices that prevented establishing a friendship with persons of the same sex, especially men. The persistence of hegemonic masculinity prevented physical and emotional contact openness among beneficiaries, especially among men.