LEAVING THE COLOMBIAN CONFLICT BEHIND
What is Planeta Paz?
Planeta Paz is a Colombian non-governmental organisation, founded in 2000, with the purpose of promoting the active participation of leaders of the popular social sectors in the dialogue process between the Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia guerrillas (FARC) and the Ejercito de Liberación Nacional (ENL). Their aim is to strengthen the popular sectors and build peace through research, popular education and communication. It also carries out, promotes and disseminates studies related to national and international problems, social movements and popular social sectors. The goal of their project is to build democracy, contribute to the political solution of the armed conflict through transformations at the territorial and national levels and strengthen the popular social joints.
In order to strengthen the social sectors, Planeta Paz contributes to the knowledge of the national reality, the construction of democratic political subjects capable of building society and nation with social justice and the research for solutions viable to the Colombian social, political and armed conflict.
Planeta Paz intends to be recognized as an organization that has contributed to the materialization of the proposals of the popular social sectors as autonomous subjects that influence the construction of alternative forms of power, the formulation and implementation of public policies and social projects, and the strengthening of its negotiating capacity with a view to the political resolution of the social and armed conflict, and the achievement of sustainable peace.
Some basic criteria that characterise the work of the Proyecto Planeta Paz: the public, clear exchange of knowledge, social critical investigation and training, articulation of the socio-political, political positioning of the social and communication.
The Project is organised in two strategic lines: (1) a sectorial agenda for peace (from which the Agenda Mínima de Paz was created - a document of public policy for peace realised by a group of popular social organisations) and (2) the definition of proposals of public policies for peace.
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The Corporación Derechos para la Paz (CDPAZ) is a non-profit organisation founded in May 2003 due to the need to give a legal expression to the Proyecto Planeta Paz. The team is made up of a small group of people from Bogotá, Neiva, Pasto, Medellín and other cities in the country who moderate, encourage, contribute and manage the processes with the popular social organisations associated with the Planet Peace Project.
5 phases to reach the final goal
First and second phase
2000-2009
Planeta Paz worked with popular social sectors (i.e. Afro Colombians, environmentalists, peasants, communications, LGBT, indigenous people, youth, and women) in 7 regions that comprehend 21 nodes (in Amazonia, Caribe, Cafetera, Nororiente, Pacifico, Bogota) for the construction of a social strategy for peace under 3 axes: minimum agenda for peace, public policies for peace and communication
Third phase
2010-2013
It focused on the characterisation of the territorial conflicts from a popular perspective and a design of strategies for their transformation with 3 objectives: defining the profile of a social agenda for the negotiation of the conflict; from that, they started formulating public policy proposals in order to finally influence (with these proposals) the decision-making spaces on the political resolution of the conflict.
Fourth phase
2014-2017
It was carried out in the context of the negotiation of the armed conflict and the systematization of territorial and organizational agendas, including the Common Agenda for Peace from the Territories (ACPT). The latter consists of a joint work of Planeta Paz and Oxfam with the European Union support with the purpose of contributing to the creation of social and political conditions that will allow the establishment of concrete bridges between the negotiation of the armed conflict and the building of peace in the territories, through the participation of popular organisations in the redefinition of the development, in particular the rural one, and the political system of Colombia.
Fifth phase
2018-present
Systematization of experiences and territorial practices of popular organizations in the perspective of building peace.
What Planeta Paz does
Planeta Paz has worked with different social sectors next to other organisations in order to build peace. 1100 organisations and 3500 leaders of 20 departments of the country have been counted to have contributed to different phases of the Planeta Paz project. There are many opportunities for the public to contribute to the construction of peace: popular resistance, spaces for unity in political and social structure, the agendas of reconstruction of peace and public policies, the debate on the paramilitarisation of the country and the international political evolution.
Throughout the years, Planeta Paz has worked with several social organisations in the country with (1) the aim to build peace through education, accompaniment and exchange of experiences and (2) local initiatives to create dialogues and intersectoral work groups to contribute to public policies. Several actions, projects, incentives and processes are linked together but involve different sectors:
