This chapter summarizes how the USA, Canada, Sweden, UK, UN, EU, World Bank, IDB and MAPP/OEA have been involved in peacebuilding efforts in Colombia. It starts by describing the cooperation agendas of the countries under evaluation, and then summarizes the multilateral efforts made through the post-conflict multi-trust funds set up to aid the transition to peace. In addition, the chapter explains the role of the MAPP/OEA in monitoring and providing support to the peace process. The chapter points to relevant antecedents in the international actors’ cooperation agendas and outlines their priorities and agendas during the period studied. The chapter also reflects on how each actor privileged a particular approach to liberal peacebuilding.

The USA

‘Plan Colombia’ was implemented in the first decade of the 2000s by the Colombian government and US officials to strengthen the military for counter-drug and counter-insurgency purposes and, in a marginal proportion, to aid socio-economic development. Since 2008, this has given way to a progressive nationalization and reduction of US assistance to pre-Plan Colombia levels. At the same time, the second decade of the 20th century saw a closer-to 50/50 balance between socio-economic and military aid (Rojas, 2012; GMH, 2013; Beittel, 2012, 2017, 2019).

The follow-up to Plan Colombia, the National Consolidation Plan, was announced initially in 2007 by the Uribe administration and relaunched in 2010 by the Santos administration (as the National Plan for Consolidation and Territorial Reconstruction). The plan combined provision of security, counter-narcotics, institutionalization or strengthening of state institutions and provision, and development in vulnerable areas where violence converged with the presence of illegal groups and drug trafficking. The inter-agency programme Colombia Strategic Development Initiative (CSDI), which included USAID, the US state and justice departments and the US Military Group, assisted with counter-drug, military, police and justice strengthening as well as socio-economic development in areas targeted for consolidation. In 2010, the USA also brought back a 1960s strategy called Peace Corps, facilitating US youngsters’ voluntary work in Colombia. In 2016, the USA was reported to be the main contributor to peacebuilding (47 per cent of the total), according to the Presidential Agency for Cooperation (Beittel, 2012, 2017, 2019; USAID, 2013; Rojas, 2013; APC, 2016).

Funding for Colombia decreased from 2012 until 2017, and then increased until 2019 to support the peace agreement implementation.