A Review of the European Union’s Gender Approach in Its Support for the Colombian Peace Process

Abstract

The Colombian peace process is considered a conceptually and politically innovative one due to the relevance that the gender approach acquired in the 2016 Peace Agreement. Therefore, this chapter analyses the gender and peace agenda of the European Union’s cooperation in Colombia. The results point to an increase in gender mainstreaming, especially through the European Peace Fund. This trend is reinforced by the guidelines of the Gender Action Plan III (2020–2025), which state that 85% of all new EU actions in external relations must contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment. However, other findings point to specific actions that can be assessed from a more critical perspective, for example: “adding” women in activities that are not based necessarily on analyses about the causes of gender inequality; adopting a “family approach” outside of gender considerations; reinforcing, homogenizing and victimizing images of women when they are reduced to the category of “vulnerable groups”; subsuming support for women in actions aimed at a diverse set of civil society subjects; the lack of integral gender and intersectional approaches; and the lack of a dual strategy that combines mainstreaming with a gender line of action that has its own financing.

1 Introduction

In Colombia, for decades the women’s and feminist movement experienced a marginalization of their analyses, indictments and proposals with regard to political and scholarly inquiry into the causes and consequences of the armed conflict. However, its strong dynamism and growing capacity for political impact have been crucial for the inclusion of gender as part of the “differential perspective” which has permeated the current peace process, to the extent that the gender approach and the positions of the women’s movement and, to a lesser degree, the LGBTI movement—now have a presence in the discussions about the armed conflict, the 2016 Peace Agreement and its implementation. As a result, the case of Colombia is considered internationally as a peace process that is conceptually and politically innovative due to the importance given to the gender approach and to sex-gender diversity during the negotiations and in the Peace Agreement itself.

Within this framework, for international actors who support the Colombian peace process, such as the European Union (EU), their involvement in the gender and peace agenda has become both an unavoidable matter and an opportunity to establish a reputation and leadership in this area. The EU has reiterated its support for observance of the Peace Agreement and the institutional architecture created in relation to it (European Parliament, 2021). This has also meant supporting the set of gender measures in the Agreement, in a political-institutional and partly social context that puts barriers in the way of implementing them, and which has proven hostile to the gender provisions it contains. In fact, this matter was a vital one for the No supporters in the referendum organized by the Juan Manuel Santos government in order to endorse the Agreement. Among other arguments, they invoked the formula of “gender ideology” to spread fake news that attributed to the Peace Agreement, for example, the imposition of sex education, the removal of children from their parents’ custody, and support for abortion (Gil Hernández, 2020).

The consequences have been negative from the point of view of human rights and peacebuilding in the country. In the revision of the agreement that took place after the referendum, these sectors managed to have the gender approach understood as a “women’s issue”, expurgating contents covering the rights of the LGBTI population, including traditional definitions regarding the family and working to “remove sexual and reproductive rights from the heart of the social pact” (Gil Hernández, 2020). Despite this backward movement, or perhaps precisely because of it, Colombia has offered the EU an opportunity to take on a role, both self-proclaimed and desired, of leadership in favour of gender equality.

The goal of this chapter is to carry out an analysis of the gender approach in EU cooperation in Colombia and its transformational potential in terms of moving towards a peace that includes gender justice, understood as the end of inequalities and subordination between genders (Goetz, 2007). In order to do this, I will firstly offer some background to the inclusion of the gender approach in the peace process and the central role played in this by the Colombian women’s and feminist movement. Secondly, I will look at the gender and peace agenda in the EU’s cooperation in Colombia, based both on the pertinent body of regulations and how the gender approach has been implemented in its initiatives supporting the peace process.

At the methodological level, this study is essentially based on a bibliographical review and documentary analysis of, mainly, EU regulatory and planning texts related to the gender agenda and peacebuilding, as well as documents regarding the application of the gender approach in the European cooperation instruments employed in Colombia. It is important to underline the fact that these instruments are very diverse and they have been implemented for many years, and so this analysis can in no way, in intention or in fact, be exhaustive. In this respect, I add three considerations: firstly, to order the analysis I follow the description of instruments proposed by the European Cooperation in Colombia’s Information System (known as SICEC)¹; secondly, I describe the assessments of the EU’s most recent actions related to the gender and peace agenda in the country (projects underway or recently finalized); and lastly, in reviewing projects I have taken as a criterion the appearance of aspects related to “gender”, “gender equality”, “women’s empowerment” and/or “LGBTI population” in their titles, descriptions, goals and/or indicators. Additionally, I have interviewed two people with technical responsibilities in the EU Delegation in Colombia, and representatives of two networks of Colombian women’s organizations with experience in carrying out European cooperation projects.

2 Background to the Inclusion of the Gender Approach in the Peace Process: The Leading Role of the Women’s Movement

In Colombia, the women’s and feminist movement has played an outstanding role for decades in terms of organizing and mobilising towards a negotiated solution to the armed conflict, in bringing to light violence against women, and in demanding truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition (Gallego Zapata, 2017; Gómez & Montealegre, 2021). It is a broad and diverse movement, which includes different feminist currents, and which often acts by joining temporary or permanent networks and associations of groups.

In the period 1982 to 2017, women’s organizations became involved in 363 collective pro-peace actions, as organizers in 33% and as participants in 67% of the cases, which shows that it is a social movement with a considerable capacity to build alliances with other sectors of civil society. The majority were actions that were against the armed conflict, and violations of human rights and International Humanitarian Law, and about seeking peaceful alternatives and in favour of dialogue processes and negotiated outcomes. These actions have included a broad range of methods, for example: marches and rallies, meetings, forums and seminars, cultural events, actions oriented at memory, civil resistance actions, collective statements, walkouts and strikes (Parrado Pardo, 2018: 4–6).

During the peace negotiations held in Havana between the Colombian government and FARC-EP, the women’s movement managed to promote the creation of a Gender Subcommittee, in September 2014, with the goal of including the gender perspective in the partial agreements already adopted, as well as in the eventual Agreement that resulted from the dialogues. As a result of the work of this subcommittee, the gender approach of the Peace Agreement included content in eight specific areas: (1) Access and formalization of rights to rural property under equality of conditions; (2) Guarantee of economic, social and cultural rights of women and people with diverse sexual identities from the rural population; (3) Promotion of the participation of women in representation, decision-making and conflict resolution spaces; (4) Prevention and protection measures that attend to specific risks for women; (5) Access to the truth and justice, and to guarantees of non-repetition; (6) Public recognition, non-stigmatization and dissemination of the work done by women as political subjects; (7) Institutional management for the strengthening of women’s organizations and LGBTI movements for their social and political participation; and (8) Separate information systems.

Since 2016, the women’s movement in Colombia has contributed to the implementation of the Peace Agreement in the different territories. The conditions of violence and discrimination in which this task has been carried out are alarming. The already high rates of femicide, the most important indicator of the levels of inequality between women and men, have increased since the Peace Agreement. In the period between 2017 and 2021, 2,722 femicides were registered in the country, with four provinces leading in terms of the prevalence of this crime: Antioquia (488), Valle del Cauca (397), Cauca (181) and Bogotá D.C. (161) (Observatorio Feminicidios Colombia, 2021). That is to say, the Peace Agreement has not brought a reduction in the levels of violence against women in Colombia, as expressed in femicides. The same happens with violence against LGBTI people, given the average of 110 murders per year since 2011 and a considerable increase to 226 in 2020, an especially violent year for this group. The Report on the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Persons in Colombia report, whose title eloquently states Nada que celebrar (“Nothing to Celebrate”), registers 1,060 victims, including victims of threats (443), murder (333) and police violence (284) in 2019 and 2020. Most victims are located, once again, in Antioquia, Valle del Cauca and Bogotá D.C. (Colombia Diversa, 2020).

From a territorial point of view, the greatest number of feminist peace actions between 1982 and 2017 were concentrated in Antioquia (25%), Bogotá D.C (21%), Santander (14%) and Valle del Cauca (9%) (Parrado Pardo, 2018). That is to say, in three of the four provinces where the highest rates of femicides have occurred in the last five years (as well as murders of LGBTI people in 2020). This could indicate a certain relationship between the dynamic of pro-peace feminist activism and the territorial occurrence of femicide. In fact, this occurrence reflects a geography of violence that is much more complex than the one offered in the usual analyses of the conflict, which focus on the variability of the areas of territorial control by the armed actors.

Furthermore, according to figures from the Somos Defensores Programme (2020), between 2013 and 2019 1,338 incidents of violence against women human rights defenders were registered, 31% of the total attacks on defenders. The figures for attacks on them have increased, particularly within the framework of the implementation of the Peace Agreement, with a greater percentage rise (165%) when compared to attacks on men defenders (a rise of 116%), and a significant increase since 2018. Many women defenders, whether in women’s organizations or peasant, indigenous, Afro-descendent, popular, victims’ and sexual diversity organizations, have stood out for their work in favour of peace, in such a way that, both before and after the Peace Agreement, women and their organizations are a target of violence.

In this context of structural violence against women and LGBTI people throughout the country, both sectors emphasize the fact that peace demands a profound transformation of the set of discriminatory, unequal and violent relations in Colombian society. In this regard, they point to the ways in which sexist, homophobic, transphobic, racist, classist and colonial relations feed on each other and are behind the armed conflict itself and the construction of violent masculinities that contribute to maintaining it. Upon these bases, the feminist movement, as a diverse political subject, has been crucial to include the differential approach in the Colombian peace process. This covers not only the gender approach and sexual diversity, but also approaches that consider ethnic affiliation, age or life cycle and disability, as well as dealing with psychosocial and cultural matters, as has been assumed by the Colombian Truth Commission. The articulation of approaches based on intersectionality is a feminist contribution that challenges both the Colombian State, given its patriarchal, heteronormative, racist and classist foundations (Curiel, 2013), and the international cooperation, still saturated with essentialist views regarding the gender and peace agenda (Mendia Azkue, 2014) and with legacies of colonial modernity (Gómez Correal, 2016; Gómez Correal & Montealegre Mogrovejo, 2021).

3 The European Union’s Gender and Peace Agenda in Colombia

3.1 International and Regional Regulatory References

The actions taken by the EU in Colombia with regard to gender equality are based on various international and European regional instruments. Among the international sources of reference, it is worth highlighting that the Fourth World Conference on Women (United Nations, 1995) urged to adopt the gender mainstreaming strategy into all public policies and encouraged an interest in gender as a key dimension of the international peace and security agenda. For the first time in these kinds of conferences, a working group on Women and Armed Conflicts was created, one of whose results was the adoption of six goals in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which respond to strategic interests for the guarantee of women’s rights in situations of armed conflict.²

Another reference point in terms of EU actions in Colombia is Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security passed by the United Nations Security Council (2000). This recognizes different experiences of conflicts according to gender, calls for the protection of women from all kinds of violence against them and urges guarantees in terms of their participation in the promotion of peace at all decision-making levels. Resolution 1325 (R1325) was considered to be a watershed in terms of regulatory progress in the sphere of gender, conflicts and peacebuilding, largely because the UN Security Council approved it, an entity that had previously not been ready to consider violence against women as an international security and peace matter. In fact, the R1325 gave rise to approval by the Security Council of new resolutions on the same matter, contributing to the consolidation of what is known as the International Agenda on Women, Peace and Security (WPS).³ Taken as a whole, this agenda promotes the participation of women in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, the prevention of violence, protection against violence and the rehabilitation of victims. In terms of gender and peace, the R1325 has become the main reference, and occasionally the only one, for governments and multilateral, international and local organizations. This includes the EU, which refers to R1325 much more frequently than to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. In any case, this Resolution does not contain binding commitments for States (and so there are no international mechanisms for demanding compliance), but rather it leaves to the discretion of countries whether or not they pass a National Action Plan (NAP) for its application, both in terms of domestic and foreign policy.⁴

Lastly, at the international level, the UN’s Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have now become a dimension to be mainstreamed at all levels in EU actions, particularly in its cooperation instruments (Sanahuja & Ruiz Sandoval, 2019). Therefore, SDG number 5, “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” has acquired centrality as a guiding goal in the European gender and peacebuilding agenda in third countries.

As a result of the acceleration of the UN’s regulatory development in the field of gender equality from the 1990s onwards, the EU has progressively promoted its own regulatory body in this area. In 2008, the Council passed the document Comprehensive approach to the EU implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820 on Women, Peace and Security as a general framework for action and the evaluation of policies related to the peace and security of its member States (Council of the European Union, 2008). Along these same lines, in 2018, the Council sent to all external delegations the Council Conclusions on Women, Peace and Security, which included as an appendix the EU Strategic Approach to Women, Peace and Security policy document. This recognizes gender equality and the empowerment of women as a “prerequisite for dealing with the conflict cycle (prevention, management and resolution)” (Council of the European Union, 2018: 6). Soon afterwards, the Council passed the EU Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) 2019–2024, which sets as interconnected goals: participation, prevention, protection and rehabilitation (in accordance with the WPS International Agenda goals); gender mainstreaming; and EU leadership through example. This Plan includes steps to be implemented by the EU, while the member States, third countries and international, regional and civil society organizations are “encouraged” to implement them “as appropriate” (Council of the European Union, 2019: 7). That is to say, in the same way as with the National Action Plans, the steps included in the EU Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) are not binding for States, but are, rather, a set of recommendations.

The European Parliament (EP) is a space where the gender and peace agenda has been the subject of debate relatively often, and where several resolutions on this matter have been passed since the year 2000. The EP reiterates, in them, the need to integrate the gender perspective into peacebuilding, the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peacekeeping operations and rehabilitation and reconstruction after conflicts, as well as to guarantee that the gender factor is taken into consideration in all programmes on the ground.⁵ Furthermore, the EP has promoted various specific resolutions on Colombia, the last of them being the Resolution on the fifth anniversary of the Peace Agreement in Colombia, in which it states, once again, the importance of actively integrating the gender approach in all spheres of action (European Parliament, 2021).

In 2020, the European Commission presented the document A Union for Equality: Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2025. It confirms that gender equality and women’s empowerment is an essential goal of the EU’s exterior action, and so, it makes a commitment to continue to support “women’s human rights, its defenders, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and efforts to curb sexual and gender-based violence throughout the world, including in fragile, conflict and emergency situations” (European Commission, 2020a: 18).

Another essential instrument approved by the EU that guides its exterior policy is the Gender Action Plan (GAP). From the point of view of the EU Delegation in Colombia, this Plan “has helped ensure that gender-related issues are a priority for the EU development cooperation in the country” (European Union, 2019). At this time, the EU Gender Action Plan III: An Ambitious Vision on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment for EU External Action (GAP III) (European Commission, 2020b) is in force. This plan, which covers the 2021–2025 period, recognizes the limited progress that has been made in this area and sets the goal of accelerating and achieving greater effectiveness in terms of the EU’s commitment to gender equality. Furthermore, it proposes that the achievements made since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action be safeguarded. This admission of the limited effectiveness attained by the EU up until now occurs in the context of a significant regression in terms of international action in favour of equality, in parallel with a rise in anti-gender and anti-feminist discourses and the gradual reduction of sums of Official Development Aid (ODA) for women’s rights and empowerment (Mendia Azkue, 2014).

The GAP III focuses on five pillars: (1) for 2025, 85% of all new actions in all exterior relations should contribute to gender equality, a target that requires “further gender mainstreaming in all external policies and sectors and a gender-transformative, rights-based and intersectional approach”⁶; (2) a general strategic vision and close cooperation with member States and partners at the multilateral, regional and national levels; (3) six key thematic areas for intervention: a life free of violence; sexual and reproductive health; economic and social rights; leadership and political participation; women, peace and security; and green transition and digital transformation; (4) lead by example, and (5) measurement of the results. Therefore, the GAP III seeks not only greater effectiveness, but also more coordination, leadership and accountability in the EU’s exterior action with respect to gender.

The EU’s gender strategy in Colombia should be in alignment with these five essential pillars and with the six thematic outcomes prioritized in the GAP III. In particular, by setting the target that 85% of all new EU actions in the exterior should contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment, the EU aspires to lead a movement of change and to become an example of gender mainstreaming, both for other international actors and for national and local authorities in the countries where it intervenes. This is a requirement that clearly raises the level of exigency and the expectation of impact in terms of the actions of the EU Delegation in Colombia, and which could contribute to overcoming a certain degree of superficiality observed in support for gender equality so far.

With regard to the six thematic areas prioritized by the GAP III, the EU Delegation in Colombia has adopted four of them as specific areas for special attention: gender violence; economic, social and cultural rights; women, peace and security; and women and the ecological transition. This prioritization means that the other two outcomes envisioned in the GAP III have been “sacrificed”: political participation, and sexual and reproductive rights and health, that is to say, areas of impact that the feminist movement has historically considered to be strategic in terms of the transformation of gender inequalities. This may be due to a lack of sufficient resources (funding and personnel) of the Delegations to promote the gender agenda (Villellas et al., 2016). Another explanation may be the intention to avoid supporting certain actions, particularly those relating to sexual and reproductive rights, which may affect relations between the EU and the Colombian government, little inclined to guarantee the exercise of such rights.

As we can see, the EU has a very broad body of regulations and policies for the promotion of gender equality in its exterior action and in countries affected by armed conflicts or situations of crisis. However, it is possible to make critical assessments of these.

Firstly, the extent to which they are developed seems to be motivated not only by a desire for leadership in this area, but also particularly by the example set by the United Nations. Furthermore, this has happened with a certain delay, given that, despite the broad international consensus created by the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the EU did not adopt any indicators to evaluate the degree to which the six strategic goals regarding women and armed conflicts had been achieved until 2008 (Council of the European Union, 2009).

Secondly, the EU often links gender mainstreaming in peace and security policies with the objective of inserting more women into the military and police forces involved in United Nations peacekeeping operations and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions. This is an interpretation that is unrelated to the Beijing goals, which tend precisely towards the demilitarization of international relations, and not to the militarization of more women.

Thirdly, a common criticism of the EU’s exterior action in terms of gender equality is the gap between the existing regulations and their implementation (Villellas et al., 2016), which certainly affects the EU’s credibility and its pretensions to leadership in this sphere.

Lastly, patriarchal and colonial biases undermine the EU’s peacebuilding and conflict prevention discourses and policies (Davis, 2018; Martín de Almagro, 2017).

3.2 Gender Action in European Cooperation in Colombia

According to SICEC figures for European cooperation projects in Colombia underway in December 2021, 10 of a total of 55 projects enter into the Gender Equality category according to the classification of the SDGs. The majority of the projects are territorial (84.5%), with the presence of the following departments: Nariño (37.78%), Putumayo (18.83%), Caquetá (18.31%), Antioquia (7.32%), Guaviare (5.70%), Chocó (2.18%), Córdoba (1.98%), La Guajira (1.53%), Cesar (1.53%) and others (4.84%). An evaluation of the geographical location of these projects reveals a high concentration in Nariño and Putumayo (56.61%), and a lesser presence in other departments where, as we have seen, violence against women, expressed in femicides, has been particularly high (Antioquia, Valle del Cauca and Cauca) in the last five years.

In terms of financial resources, these projects have a budget of 19.45 million Euros in subsidies, which is 4.2% of a total of 454.16 million Euros for all the European cooperation projects in the country (both repayable and non-repayable). This is certainly a very small proportion of the funds, and it is indicative of a lack of prioritization of gender equality in European external action.

Most projects are run by international bodies (25.79%) and by international NGOs (25.51%), followed at a considerable distance by non-state actors (7.81%), a result of which is a low level of direct organization of gender equality projects by Colombian civil society organizations, particularly women’s organizations and LGBTI groups. The limited presence of these organizations among the subjects who implement projects is striking, if we bear in mind that, by their very nature, they are the ones with the greatest levels of specialization in the matter. In fact, of the 10 projects, only two are run by organizations in these areas: in one case by Corporación Sisma Mujer and in the other, Colombia Diversa.⁷

Furthermore, the SICEC orders projects according to the classification of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in which the only item that expresses a direct relationship with gender equality is “Women’s equality organisations and institutions”.⁸

The OECD includes this item in the category of “Government and civil society”. In December 2021, European cooperation had four projects within this category underway, for a value of €122.54 million Euros. These are projects of national scope (95.6%), whose principal actor is the Colombian State (92.29%) and none of them seems to have a relation to or a significant link to gender equality and women’s empowerment. This is important, given that the strengthening of equality organizations and institutions could be implicit in the general idea of support for “Government and civil society”, when the reality, as occurs is this case, is that almost all of the funds are destined for the Colombian State and that the projects underway are not aimed at strengthening equality institutions or organizations.

With a first look at the gender approach in European cooperation according to the classifications of the SDG and the OECD now complete, we will now examine in greater detail the presence of this approach within the broad range of instruments and thematic lines implemented by the EU in Colombia.

• a. Budget Support Programmes

The European Commission’s Budget Support programmes are a particularly important mechanism by which the EU can have a significant influence on the design and implementation of public policies in the countries where it intervenes. These consist of the transfer of financial resources to the recipient country, once the previously agreed pay-out conditions have been complied with, based on a monitoring process by the EU of certain results indicators. In Colombia, this instrument does not include, among its budgetary priorities, support for the national gender equality policy and, as a result, compliance or non-compliance with this policy by the Colombian government is not the subject of a results evaluation process that might condition the pay-out of funds.

Budget support by the EU in the country, for a total sum of 81.1 million Euros, is concentrated into four programmes: (1) Support for the rural development policy; (2) National policy for the competitiveness and productivity of the dairy industry (stages I and II); (3); Sectoral reform agreement for local sustainable development; and (4) Territorial competitiveness strategy (SICEC, 2018). That is to say, only in that the public policies in these four areas provide for gender actions can the EU, indirectly, affect their implementation. This has happened, for example, in the case of the rural development policy; given that the National Land Agency already had its own strategy in terms of rural women, the EU has been able to contribute to developing it through the budgetary support mechanism. Although this is clearly a positive result in terms of the rights of rural women, it should not be forgotten that this has happened as an indirect effect, unplanned by the EU.

Other European cooperation mechanisms that have similarities with budgetary support programmes are: that known in Spanish as the “Presupuesto-Programa” and the Latin America Investment Facilities (LAIFs).⁹ In the first case, the eight interventions that were underway in 2018 in Colombia cover matters such as: mine clearance, penal system, transparency, peacebuilding, digital television and public finances, with no sight of actions focusing on gender equality or women’s and/or LGBTI rights. In the second case, the LAIF projects in Colombia are aimed at supporting: the management of water resources; the sustainable development of cities and regions; and the implementation of a “climate intelligent” rural landscape (SICEC, 2018); similarly, in this case, there are no actions that explicitly, centrally or significantly support gender equality or the empowerment of women and LGBTI communities.

• b. European Fund for Peace

The European Union Trust Fund for Colombia (EUTF), also known as the European Fund for Peace, is one of the main instruments by means of which the EU channels its support for the peace process in Colombia, particularly point 1 of the Peace Agreement: Integrated Rural Reform. The Fund is based on six pillars or strategic lines that give focus to the EU’s project-based interventions in the country. Therefore, a description of them offers a first level of information regarding the inclusion of the gender approach in this instrument (Table 1).

Table 1 Gender approach in the description of the pillars of the European Fund for Peace

A closer look at the projects supported by the European Fund for Peace makes it possible to broaden the analysis. Of the 10 projects classified by the SICEC as in the “gender equality” category as of December 2021, a majority are supported by this fund (66.26%), followed by the EU (32.21%) and Spain (1.53%), which reflects the importance of this instrument, compared to others, in the promotion of this goal in Colombia. Among them, the following stands out: Political and economic territorial empowerment with a focus on rural women. Women transforming Putumayo (2019–2024). This project, designated by the EU as “Women who Transform”, appears as an intervention oriented towards Point 1 of the Peace Agreement, and it is considered by the EU Delegation in Colombia as the most emblematic example of this instrument aimed at women.

The main local partner is the Alianza de las Mujeres Tejedoras de Vida del Putumayo, a large network of grassroots women’s organizations created in 2003. At first the funds were channelled through the German Caritas association (acting via the Pastoral Social de Colombia) and, after it left the project, through the international NGO, the Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation based in the Netherlands. These are two organizations that, in principle, are not characterized by their level of specialization in gender and women’s empowerment.

The action, promoted originally by the German and French embassies, has a very high budget—6.34 million Euros—compared to the other actions supporting gender equality and women’s empowerment in Colombia. It was initially directed at women and their organizations, in order for them to develop productive and social projects and gain spaces for political participation and incidence in the territory. However, the project was opened up at an early stage to numerous mixed local organizations, which meant, for the Tejedoras de Vida alliance, an increase in the complexity of managing the project, due to the mandatory reorientation of the subject population, to the many actors involved (135 local organizations), and to the resistance of some mixed organizations to the inclusion of the gender approach and women’s rights in their activities. At the present time, the project—halted on a number of occasions—carries out three lines of action: women’s rights (including psychosocial and legal attention in cases of gender violence, building women’s organizational and leadership skills, and peacebuilding); economic empowerment of women through production-based initiatives in various industries, particularly the agriculture and fishing sector; and the promotion of legal and sustainable local economies with a gender approach. Looking at the indicators of the results of the action, it can be seen that women are given as the subject population in half of them, while in the rest the subjects are “people” or “families”.

The project has also involved local authorities,¹⁰ in that part of the Fund that promotes links between authorities and social organizations. The dynamics of interrelation in this case add complexity to the project, particularly when situations arise such as: a lack of political will to keep commitments that have been taken on, omission of institutional responsibility in guaranteeing women’s rights, strongly-rooted clientelism and even corruption. Given these kinds of difficulties, and despite the efforts of the Tejedoras de Vida alliance as the main local partner, the sustainability of the social and productive processes generated by the project can be seriously questioned.

Another gender and peace action supported by the Fund for Peace, although with a substantially smaller contribution from the EU (522,000 Euros), is the project MIA: Mestiza, Indígena, Afrodescendiente (“Mixed race, indigenous, Afro-descendent women”), aimed to facilitate the transition to civilian life of women ex-combatants in parts of Caquetá and Chocó through personal, economic and political empowerment. This initiative is oriented at the fund’s second pillar, regarding the reincorporation of former FARC-EP members.

Other Fund for Peace projects do not mainstream the gender approach throughout their activities, although they may contain occasional actions with women, for example: the Sustainable territories of Caquetá for peace: a commitment to building development, peace and legal observance in post-conflict Caquetá municipalities, or the Territorial development in the Department of Nariño in conditions of peace initiative. In the first case, the subject referred to in the results indicators is families, and only in one indicator out of 20 is there a reference to women, when a reference is made to a number of them being effectively linked to citizen participation and development processes promoted by the local authorities. In the second case, women appear as the target group in actions for promoting the participation of civil society, together with other subjects such as producers, youth and victims of the conflict. In more detail, only two of the 19 project indicators mention women, referring to the number of them who access protection of and attention to victims of gender violence, as well as economic empowerment attention services set up by the project.

• c. IcSP projects

The Instrument Contributing to Stability and Peace (IcSP) is the instrument par excellence of the European External Action Service (EEAS) to guarantee the prevention of conflicts and situations of crisis or threats in stable countries and to strengthen security and peacebuilding in countries in crisis. Of the 15 IcSP projects carried out in Colombia, with a total budget of 27.9 million Euros (SICEC, 2018), not a single one can be seen, based on its title, to indicate that it is directed at transforming gender relations or the empowerment of women and/or LGBTI people.

Taking as a basis the conclusions and recommendations of the Evaluation of IcSP actions supporting the Colombian Peace Process report (Guardans et al., 2019: 46–53), in only one of the 13 projects assessed is there a reference to the gender question. This is the Barometer Initiative: technical support to official verification of the application of the peace agreement in Colombia, included among the EU cooperation actions supporting initial implementation of the Peace Agreement. Women’s organizations are cited among the sources for data for this initiative, which supervises the observance of 578 Peace Agreement commitments, including the gender measures provided for. It can be said, then, that the sum total of IcSP projects that prioritize gender equality in the activities supported is rather a low one.

• d. European Parliament Pilot Projects and Preparatory Actions

The European Parliament Pilot Projects and Preparatory Actions (PP-PAs) are “tools for the formulation of political priorities and the introduction of new initiatives that can eventually become specific European Union activities and programmes with their own budgetary lines” (SICEC, 2018). They have an experimental nature and they act to test the viability and usefulness of an action.

European cooperation supports three PP-PAs in Colombia, two of which promote economic-labour initiatives and access to productive, financial and commercial resources and land for women in southern Cauca. The projects are: Economic autonomy and empowerment of rural women in South Cauca, and Economic and social empowerment of rural women in the Alto Patía region in the south of Cauca department, as a commitment to peacebuilding and territorial development. Both have the same budget, 0.83 million Euros, the first with an EU contribution of 0.75 million Euros and the second of 0.68 million. These are actions aimed at the empowerment of rural women that are in line with the women’s autonomy focus and respond to strategic gender interests.¹¹ The third pilot project, Harvests of peace: A sustainable investment for peace, with a total budget of 1.875 million Euros and an EU contribution of 1.5, seeks the “reactivation of the economy of small peasant producers in the department of Cauca”. It does not have a gender focus nor is it aimed at benefitting women, but rather “families”, and it presents as a positive result the participation of women in leading productive processes. No women's or LGBTI organizations lead any of the three projects.

• e. Thematic lines of European cooperation

The EU implements six thematic cooperation programmes in Colombia: four that are part of the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) (Support for non-state actors and local economic development, Environment, Investing in people and Managing migration and migratory irregularities); the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), and Food Security (IFS-FOOD) (SICEC, 2018).

Of the six thematic programmes, with a total of 45 projects, we find actions explicitly related to gender equality or the empowerment of women or the LGBTI population in three of them, with a total of eight projects (17.7%). They have a budget of 1.32 million Euros, that is to say, only 2.3% of the total sum of the projects.

Firstly, and by way of example, the DCI programmes include the Effective participation of women in monitoring the implementation of the PA and vigilance of security conditions for women’s organizations and platforms committed to a stable and lasting peace in Colombia project. This is the only one focussing on support for women’s organizations and the only one carried out directly by an organization in this sector, namely the Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres.

Secondly, in the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, in whose description women and LGBTI people appear as “vulnerable groups”, of the 11 projects underway in 2018, four have an explicit link with the gender approach or the empowerment of women or the LGBTI population. Among them, the project Reinforcing the strategic work of the defence and enforceability of the human rights of the LGBT population in Colombia, as a guarantee for the development and consolidation of democracy and the rule of law (2015–2017), specifically attends to the rights of the LGBTI population and is executed by an organization within this movement, namely Colombia Diversa.

In June 2021 the number of projects in this line fell to six, with the gender approach appearing in two, in the description of their added value: the project Safeguarding peace. Actions aimed at community protection, defence of human rights and the construction of historical memory in indigenous communities of the departments of Chocó and Antioquia, which seeks “the participation of girls and women in community leadership spaces”; and the project Protection of leaderships for an inclusive democracy, carried out in Guajira, César and Córdoba, which recognizes that violating the human rights of political, social and community leaders “particularly affects women”. A women’s, feminist or LGBTI organization had carried none of these projects out.

4 Conclusions

The European Union is an influential actor in terms of the international peace and security agenda. In its exterior action, its positions in favour of democracy, human rights, the participation of civil society and gender equality in the prevention of conflicts and peacebuilding have offered it a source of legitimacy with respect to other international actors.

However, the abundant EU documents that point to gender equality and women’s empowerment as a priority in its exterior action are only partly reflected in European cooperation in Colombia. It is not possible to conclude from this review, based on documents and interviews, that gender mainstreaming has been achieved in the instruments implemented and in the projects supported in the country, although the EU Delegation is making efforts in this direction. It is likely that the pathway indicated in the new EU Gender Action Plan (GAP III) will enable new levels of progress and impact, given that by 2025 85% of its actions are supposed to contribute to gender equality and the empowerment of women.

In general, EU projects in Colombia that explicitly include the matter of gender equality and women’s empowerment seek: (a) to increase women’s participation in community spaces that create multi-actor dialogue and in political and decision-making processes at the institutional level; (b) strengthen the skills of women as regards the prevention of violence and peacebuilding; and (c) sustain women’s economic and social empowerment processes.

The instrument through which the EU is, to the greatest extent, promoting these goals is the European Fund for Peace, which funds the majority of the projects included by the SICEC in the gender equality category. An outstanding example is the Putumayo-based “Women who Transform”, a major initiative and one that represents an example with a territorial focus by the Fund. Once it has been completed and assessed, this project could result in important learnings for future EU gender actions. Taking everything into account, it can be proposed that these kinds of experiences indicate the need to place special attention on matters such as: the level of completeness of the political, socio-economic and organizational analyses of the contexts in which they are occurring; the operational difficulties resulting from the Fund’s complex administrative procedures, which require high administrative capacities from the grassroots organizations involved; definition of the intermediary role that international organizations have in the execution and, above all, their level of specialization in gender and women’s empowerment; the relationship and power dynamics between the local partner organizations and the authorities that the Fund involves in the projects; and, linked to this last point, planning for mechanisms that guarantee the sustainability of the productive and social processes created.

Together with the Fund’s actions, important projects are the two EU Pilot Projects that promote the economic autonomy and empowerment of rural women. It is interesting to note that these projects have been considered and included in the category of “experimental”, when (physical, political and economic) autonomy is an essential part of the strategic gender interests that have been promoted by the feminist movement for decades. In fact, this kind of project should form part of the habitual actions of the EU, and be granted with sufficient resources to produce notable progress in the autonomy of women and in the transformation of gender inequalities.

With respect to the gender approach, it is possible to identify some trends in the gender actions supported by the EU that need be looked at critically: (a) “adding” women to activities that have not necessarily been designed based on critical analyses of the causes of gender inequality; (b) adopting a “family focus” that presupposes equal impacts on all family members regardless of gender considerations; (c) reinforcing homogenizing and victimizing images of women when they are reduced to the category of “vulnerable groups”; (d) subsuming support for women into actions directed at a diverse group of civil society subjects, particularly youth and ethnic populations, without attending to their differentiated realities; (e) suffering from a lack of integrated gender and intersectionality focuses with the potential to reflect the matrix of inequalities rooted in the patriarchy, capitalism and colonialism that puts obstacles in the way of implementing peace; (f) lacking a dual strategy that, while promoting the integration of the gender perspective in existing cooperation instruments, also develops a specific line of action with its own funding.

In terms of financial resources, it is evident that the EU’s narrative regarding the centrality of gender equality does not correspond to the sums it is allocating to this objective in Colombia. This is a recurring political incoherence that affects the forms of action of most international cooperation actors, not only in Colombia. At least until now, the EU has not allocated funds for gender equality in significant amounts and in proportions able to create substantial transformations in either social relations or in the living conditions of women and LGBTI people in this country.

Lastly, in terms of the subjects prioritized, if the organized action of the women’s movement in Colombia has enabled the inclusion of the gender approach in the Peace Agreement, a strengthening of the movement’s organizational and mobilizing capacities would seem to be the most probably way of favouring the governmental implementation of the Agreement and in order to achieve important results with regard to gender equality. It might be useful to remember that Colombia has, for decades, had one of the most advanced bodies of regulations and public policies in terms of gender equity, at least in the Latin American region, and that the problem continues to be the repeated failure to comply with these at all levels of government. However, in its actions regarding women’s participation, the EU does not give sufficient centrality to the movement’s autonomous organization and mobilization when it comes to demanding compliance with existing policies, but rather focuses on the movement’s presence in “government-society dialogue spaces”. This way of acting is according to a “democratic governance” focus that may be ignoring the historical correlation of power that has not been favourable to the country’s social and popular sectors, particularly the women’s movement.

This study shows that women’s, feminist and LGBTI organizations are recipients of a considerably lower proportion of European funding and, what is more, they do not have permanent mechanisms for dialogue with the EU. This is the result of comparisons with funds aimed at state building and for spaces of inter-institutional articulation created between the EU and the Colombian government, in which the true negotiation and decision-making dynamics regarding the orientation of European cooperation occur. In these unbalanced conditions, pushing for women’s participation to happen in government-society dialogue spaces can act to erode these organizations, stimulate their instrumentalization by the authorities and, in the worst of cases, their persecution through political and penal channels, particularly in those territories where power dynamics resulting from the conflict and high levels of violence against them still last. This last case is a strong argument for, firstly, paying more attention to strengthening the women’s and feminist movement and, secondly, to promoting such dialogue spaces in circumstances in which women’s organizations have a solid local and national position, capacity for real incidence and secure conditions.