Highlight SDAI: Successful Reintegration Trajectories of Ex-Combatants in Colombia

The 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) called for the collective demobilisation and reintegration ("reincorporation") of nearly 14,000 FARC combatants. The Colombian presidential agency, the Agency for Reincorporation and Standardization (ARN), has been responsible for administering the reintegration process and for giving advice and support to ex-combatants. Since 2003, the ARN has supported the reintegration of paramilitaries, special reintegration of individual rebel-combatants, and reincorporation of collectively demobilised FARC combatants. The research division of the ARN holds extensive data on these reintegration and reincorporation processes that so far have yet to be fully analysed. In particular, the reincorporation of former FARC combatants deserves further scrutiny.

In collaboration with researchers at ARN and academics at Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, the proposed research has identified the need to better understand what constitutes a successful reincorporation trajectory contrasting inclusion and marginalisation of former combatants. The project will identify the individual socioeconomic determinants of successful reintegration as well as the spatial and institutional context in which former FARC combatants find themselves. Moreover, the reincorporation process includes the provision of seed funding for business projects, so-called "productive projects". The research also aims to better understand why some productive projects have been successful while others failed. Here too, we will consider individual and contextual factors. Apart from data held by the ARN, relevant regional and municipal-level data are held by the Colombian National Planning Department, the Ministry of Defence, National Service of Employment, Ministry of Education, the Institute for Family Protection, and the Office of People Advocacy (Ombudsman Office). The research project aims to support information exchange between ARN and these relevant Colombian institutions, as well as strengthen the capacity within the ARN to analyse such nested data using spatial and network analysis techniques.

The Colombian government has recently announced the restart of peace talks in November 2022. This context offers a time opportunity to assess the reincorporation experience of FARC combatants. The Colombian government is starting negotiations with the National Liberation Army or Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), another guerrilla group involved in the civil war, who currently have approximately 3,000 members. The insights and learned lessons from previous reintegration and reincorporation processes are important to design new policies and programmes to support future reincorporation processes. The findings from our project will be able to inform the government's reincorporation process by providing new ideas or refining existing ones.