Gender and IDPs: Integrating Gender into Colombia Peace and Development.

The Peace and Development Program (PDP) was born in the Magdalena Medio region of Colombia, a region characterized by extreme violence, yet also a vibrant and resilient civil society. Peace and Development represents a community driven response to economic development, conflict resolution and addressing the Colombia¿s humanitarian crisis. It has been implemented in more than 18 zones in the country and has developed a viable framework for peace and development that brings the state into local communities, sometimes for the first time, and extends basic citizen rights to individuals. The project centers on three key components: (1) preventing displacement; (2) generating appropriate conditions for sustainable re-establishment (return or relocation); and (3) strengthening the National System of Integrated Services for Displaced Populations (SNAIPD). The World Bank and its civil society counterparts have focused on generating employment and viable productive processes for small and medium size farmers through marketing cooperatives where groups of small farmers formed co-ops to collectively market cocoa, African palm, and other tropical products. However, the key to local level development in high-conflict, vulnerable zones has been the simultaneous implementation of local peace strategies; one would not be possible without the other. The Bank-funded project has developed a theory and practice of Peace and Development, and inspired several initiatives throughout the country, most notably the European-Union funded Peace Laboratories (PDPs are also financed by UNDP, GTZ, the private sector, and others). The project, Gender and IDPs: Integrating Gender into Peace and Development serves as a vehicle to integrating gender into Peace and Development. Specifically it seeks to support women who were once displaced by conflict, but have now returned to their communities of origin and are trying to reestablish their livelihoods. Besides contributing to the broader goals of the PDP, there are four specific goals for this project; (1) Increase the economic empowerment of returned women in their communities, (2) Better understand the causes of political and/or domestic violence in these areas against women and identify tools to mitigate them, (3) Propose a framework to build the assets (including greater food security) of internally displaced women, and (4) Increase the participation of returned women in the PDP.