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61. Hezbollah in Colombia: Past and Present Modus Operandi and the Need for Greater Scrutiny

Author:
Aurora Ortega
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
A probe of the group’s commercial activities can yield insights on its Latin American operations, which in recent years have touched not only Colombia but also Peru, Chile, and Bolivia. Research on Hezbollah in Latin America has tended to focus on Venezuela and the Tri-Border Area, covering Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, but recent events show that less noted countries deserve attention too. In 2014, for example, Peruvian police arrested a Hezbollah operative in Lima’s Surquillo district for planning a terrorist operation, and security services in the region also evidently disrupted a Hezbollah terrorist plot targeting innocent civilians in Chile. In 2017, Bolivian authorities identified a Hezbollah-affiliated warehouse and seized enough explosive precursor material to produce a two-and-a-half-ton bomb. Then, in fall 2021 in Colombia, local reporting indicated that Hezbollah was planning to assassinate an Israeli national as part of a broader operation that also targeted Americans, reportedly to avenge the January 2020 killing of Iran’s Qods Force commander Qasem Soleimani. In this incisive Policy Note, researcher Aurora Ortega demonstrates how enhanced scrutiny of Hezbollah’s commercial ventures could provide insight into the group’s operations and potentially disrupt its infrastructure in the Western Hemisphere. To this end, she highlights the activities of little-known Hezbollah agents in Latin America and outlines opportunities for the United States to interdict them through a mix of law enforcement, sanctions, and diplomacy.
Topic:
Terrorism, Non State Actors, Law Enforcement, Hezbollah, and Commerce
Political Geography:
Colombia and South America

62. The Ethnic Chapter of Colombia’s Peace Agreement Five Years On: An Independent Assessment

Author:
Helmer Eduardo Quiñones Mendoza
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Accountability Research Center (ARC), American University
Abstract:
In 2016, the Colombian Peace Agreement included an Ethnic Chapter designed to ensure the representation of and oversight by indigenous and Afro-Colombian social organizations in the implementation process. This recognition of ethnic rights as a cross-cutting agenda set a precedent among international peace-building processes. But failures in the implementation have meant that armed conflict and systematic violence against ethnic peoples and their territories have raged on. In this Accountability Note, Helmer Eduardo Quiñones Mendoza presents an assessment of the implementation of the Ethnic Chapter of the peace agreement. The assessment was carried out by the advisory team to the High-Level Forum with Ethnic Peoples (IEANPE), the main mechanism for monitoring and promoting the Ethnic Chapter, and presented to the Colombian government in 2021. Together with a preface by Armando Wouriyú Valbuena (Secretary of the Ethnic Commission, Technical Secretary of the IEANPE, and distinguished indigenous leader), an introduction by Jonathan Fox (ARC Director), and an afterword by Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli (Washington Office on Latin America), this note assesses implementation against each of the agreement’s six pillars, identifies entry points for improvement, and lays out an agenda for building a new future for Colombia’s ethnic minorities by fully implementing the Ethnic Chapter of the 2016 agreement.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Treaties and Agreements, Minorities, Ethnicity, and Peace
Political Geography:
Colombia and South America

63. Drug Policy in Colombia: The Road to a Just Regulation

Author:
Global Commission On Drug Policy
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Commission On Drug Policy
Abstract:
The position paper “Drug Policy in Colombia – The Road to a Just Regulation" presents the dynamics which have maintained Colombia hostage as the longest running, and most evident examples, of failed prohibitionist drug policies. The position paper explores the context leading to the 2016 Peace Agreement, as well as the shifts in political power that resulted in uneven and unsuccessful implementation efforts of the Agreement. It puts forward recommendations to support effective and humane drug policy reforms that enhance peace, health, security and development in Colombia.
Topic:
Security, Development, Diplomacy, Treaties and Agreements, United Nations, Law Enforcement, Regulation, and Drugs
Political Geography:
Colombia and South America

64. El control social en Colombia: Un balance sobre las veedurías ciudadanas

Author:
Mariana Cepeda Villarreal and Luis Gilberto Murillo Urrutia
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Accountability Research Center (ARC), American University
Abstract:
En Colombia existen diferentes modalidades institucionales para hacer control social dentro de las cuales se encuentran las veedurías ciudadanas, reglamentadas a través de la Ley 805 de 2003. Si bien las veedurías ciudadanas son un mecanismo de participación ampliamente conocido, y pese a haber sido reglamentado hace casi dos décadas, existe poca información sobre las dinámicas de su funcionamiento, impactos alcanzados, y factores que llevan a su éxito. Este documento analiza los límites y potencialidades de las veedurías ciudadanas en Colombia como modalidad o mecanismo de control social, a partir de la revisión del marco institucional que promueve su desarrollo y formalización en el país. Para ilustrar estas dinámicas, también se presenta la experiencia de la Veeduría Tumaco Despierta, iniciativa ciudadana de control social formalmente constituida, cuyo objeto es hacer seguimiento a la implementación del proyecto de agua y saneamiento básico bajo el crédito IBRD 86490 (PID 156239) del Banco Mundial.
Topic:
Accountability, Participation, Oversight, and Civic Engagement
Political Geography:
Colombia and South America

65. Social Mobilization and Structural Racism in Colombia

Author:
David Murillo Mosquera
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
David Murillo Mosquera used the 2021 protests in Colombia to illustrate the role social movements play, and to call for a national dialogue alongside policies such as fast-tracking land titling to provide the Afro-Colombian community with secure housing and assets.
Topic:
Social Movement, Ethnicity, Solidarity, Housing, and Racism
Political Geography:
Colombia and South America

66. How to be conflict sensitive in the midst of a pandemic? A case study on Colombia

Author:
Céline Monnier
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
Efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 have led to a series of knock-on effects. Some measures have contributed to increased social conflict and violence. Understanding how to sustain peace, while implementing measures that had drastic psycho-socioeconomic impacts has been challenging for countries around the world. This policy brief looks at Colombia, a country with some success in the management of the pandemic, and highlights lessons learned on how the United Nations can support governments to be conflict sensitive when a country is hit by an external shock such as the COVID-19 crisis.
Topic:
United Nations, Conflict, Violence, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Colombia and South America

67. Colombia’s Support for Venezuelan Migrants and Refugees: President Petro reaffirms commitment to integration, but continued progress requires more international support

Author:
Nate Edwards
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
There are over six million Venezuelan migrants and refugees globally, more than 1.8 million living in neighboring Colombia. These individuals have fled a country suffering from years of economic hardship and political strife. And still today, the situation in Venezuela continues to deteriorate leading to projections that emigration will continue, with Colombia receiving an outsized proportion of migrants. Just this year, over 753,000 Venezuelans have left home.
Topic:
Refugees, Humanitarian Crisis, and Migrants
Political Geography:
Colombia, South America, and Venezuela

68. International Managerial Skill and Big Colombian Exporting Firms’ Performance, 2006-2014

Author:
Federico Merchan
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
This paper uses a sample of the biggest private Colombian exporting firms to propose and estimate a two-step methodology for measuring international managerial skill and calculating its impact on firm performance. The first step quantifies the manager’s organizational capital contribution to improvements in Bloom et al.’s (2021) production efficiency (ability to assemble inputs into final goods) and/or quality capacity (skill to make high quality goods) mechanisms, through the median of export unit value regression residuals at firm-year level (multiplying by -1 the price competition products’ residuals). The second step is regression analysis of firm performance. Results indicate that: i) international managerial quality has a significant and robust positive effect on total export value via the intensive margin, ii) exported value elasticity relative to international managerial quality is around 3 times larger than exported value elasticity relative to exogenous global demand shocks, and iii) better managers in the international market do not necessarily upgrade export quality.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, Exports, Management, and Labor Market
Political Geography:
Colombia and South America

69. The Force of the Police: An Analysis of Police Violence Based on Experience in the United States and the Imperative to Restore Legitimacy

Author:
Robert Cornelli
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
Egon Bittner, an early scholar of policing, noted that one of the peculiarities of the institution of the police is that it swings into action in response to “something that ought not to be happening and about which someone had better do something now.” The situations in which the police are called on to act are often emergencies, and it is at junctures such as these that, paradoxically, police officers sometimes take actions that ought not to happen. This is precisely what occurred in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020, when George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was stopped by the police and subsequently killed by an officer who knelt on his neck for over nine minutes, ignoring his frequent pleas for help. The words he spoke as he suffocated under the officer’s knee—"I can’t breathe”—became an instant rallying cry for the protest movement that started in Minneapolis and quickly reverberated throughout the United States and the world. Floyd’s death reignited existing anger over American society’s deep and festering racial wounds. The litany of historical abuses in the United States is indeed long. His death also triggered significant social uprisings that have challenged the methods of policing that have emerged over the course of several decades. These uprisings have attributed greater responsibility to the police than in the past, for their perpetuation of stereotypes and discrimination. The time for an in-depth rethinking of the legitimacy of law enforcement bodies in the United States is ripe, and not only as a result of the new political approach ushered in by President Joe Biden and the greater awareness of police brutality triggered by demands of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Topic:
Law Enforcement, Reform, Criminal Justice, Memory, Institutions, Police, Truth, Violence Prevention, and Youth Engagement
Political Geography:
Colombia, South America, North America, Peru, Guatemala, and United States of America

70. Implementando los ODS 3.6 y ODS 11.2 en Colombia

Author:
Felipe Dussán Zuluaga, Luis Carlos Galindo Bernal, Luz Karine Ardila Vargas, and Diana Camargo Castelblanco
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudios sobre Desarrollo (CIDER), Universidad de los Andes
Abstract:
Según cifras de las Naciones Unidas, cada año en el mundo mueren 1,3 millones de personas y 50 millones resultan heridas por accidentes de tráfico. El 90 % de esas muertes se producen en los países en desarrollo. En Colombia, una persona fallece en promedio cada 75 minutos a causa de siniestros viales. En 2019 murieron 7.000 colombianos en accidentes de tránsito y 35.000 quedaron con lesiones graves. En 2020 y 2021, incluso con las largas cuarentenas debidas a la pandemia del Covid-19, las cifras siguieron siendo alarmantes. Es la primera causa de muerte violenta de niñas y niños entre 10 y 14 años y la segunda causa de muerte violenta por lesión de causa externa superada solamente por el homicidio (INMLCF, 2019). La inmensa mayoría de estas muertes y lesiones son evitables, pero siguen siendo un importante problema de salud pública y de desarrollo con enormes consecuencias sociales y económicas. Se estima que estas muertes y lesiones cuestan hasta el 5 % del producto interno bruto anual para algunos países. Las muertes y lesiones causadas por accidentes de tráfico son también una cuestión de equidad social porque con mayor frecuencia los pobres y los vulnerables son también los usuarios que mayor peligro corren en las vías, es decir, peatones, ciclistas, usuarios de vehículos motorizados de dos y tres ruedas y pasajeros de medios de transporte público no seguros. Son ellos quienes se ven afectados y expuestos de manera desproporcionada a riesgos y accidentes de tráfico, que pueden llevar a un ciclo de pobreza agravada por la pérdida de ingresos. Para enfrentar esta problemática se han emprendido diversos esfuerzos a nivel global. Por ejemplo, en 2011 la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) declaró como una pandemia las muertes por siniestros viales en el mundo y propuso la meta de reducir en 50% estas muertes para el 2021. La meta se logró en algunos países europeos, pero no se logró en ninguno de los países latinoamericanos. Frente a este rotundo fracaso, los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) y otras agendas de las Naciones Unidas establecieron metas que permitan reducir los accidentes de tráfico y promuevan los medios de transporte seguros y sostenibles. Entre las metas globales vigentes relacionadas con estos propósitos sobresalen el ODS 3.6, que busca “reducir a la mitad el número de muertes y lesiones causadas por accidentes de tráfico en el mundo"; y el ODS 11.2, que pretende “para 2030 proporcionar acceso a sistemas de transporte seguros, asequibles, accesibles y sostenibles para todos y mejorar la seguridad vial, en particular mediante la ampliación del transporte público”. Igualmente importante, y como resultado del trabajo realizado por el Foro Mundial para la Armonización de la Reglamentación sobre Vehículos (WP.29) promovido por la Comisión Económica para Europa de las Naciones Unidas (UNECE), se ha elaborado una normatividad para la armonización internacional de la regulación vehicular, reconocido internacionalmente como uno de los principales instrumentos para garantizar un alto nivel de seguridad, de protección del medio ambiente y de eficiencia energética de los vehículos. Colombia no ha sido partícipe de los reglamentos derivados del Foro Económico WP.29, pero viene realizando diferentes esfuerzos para el cumplimiento de los ODS 3.6 y ODS 11.2, mediante la modernización del sector transporte y el fortalecimiento de la normativa colombiana que permita cumplir con los estándares internacionales y las recomendaciones técnicas que tengan como propósito disminuir los siniestros viales. Este informe publicado por el Cider y UrbanPro surge como una primera aproximación a los efectos económicos de la incorporación de los reglamentos sobre seguridad vehicular del WP.29 en la industria automotriz y la economía colombiana, al analizar los posibles efectos de la homologación técnica en el precio de los vehículos, las ventas del sector y las principales variables macroeconómicas del país, como lo son el producto interno bruto, el consumo de los hogares y la balanza comercial. El análisis presentado en este documento es una primera aproximación de los efectos económicos más probables de la incorporación de los reglamentos generados por el WP.29 en la industria automotriz en Colombia, por lo que consta de múltiples supuestos que tienen como único objetivo compensar las carencias de información existentes. Frente a otros estudios existentes que abordan la seguridad de los vehículos en el país, el presente ejercicio sobresale por incorporar en su análisis un mayor porcentaje de vehículos que ingresan al mercado anualmente, por analizar más componentes seguridad respecto a los relacionados con la normatividad colombiana, y por determinar y analizar los costos por componente y por vehículo, sin utilizar costos promedio establecidos a nivel internacional.
Topic:
Development, Sustainable Development Goals, Macroeconomics, Public Health, and Vehicle Safety
Political Geography:
Colombia and South America