Colombia : Development and Peace in the Magdalena Medio Region
Magdalena Medio is one of the poorest and most violent areas of Colombia and a microcosm of the actors and issues underlying Colombia's armed conflict with guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, with the army battling for control while the civ...
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English |
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Washington, DC
2012
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2002/07/2507440/colombia-development-peace-magdalena-medio-region http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10406 |
| Summary: | Magdalena Medio is one of the poorest
and most violent areas of Colombia and a microcosm of the
actors and issues underlying Colombia's armed conflict
with guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, with the army
battling for control while the civilian population struggles
to survive. The region contains great natural and productive
wealth with unequal access. The Program for Development and
Peace in Magdalena Medio (PDPMM) seeks solutions to the
persistent poverty and increasing violence. Its guiding
principles were the need to involve and reflect the concerns
of all the region's citizens, and the belief that
poverty and violence are complex, interrelated problems
which must be tackled simultaneously. The Program, which
began in 1995 with a diagnostic phase, embodies a long-term
vision for community-led, comprehensive development of the
region. It aims to increase living standards and reduce
violence by creating the conditions necessary for
relationships to develop among communities, NGOs, the
business sector, various levels of government and, as
appropriate, the armed actors. The project was one of the
first Bank lending operations in a new area: peace and
development. The project demonstrated that, for a
participatory approach to succeed in such a complex and
challenging environment, there is no substitute for a design
which explicitly incorporates flexibility, close monitoring
and analysis of the socio-political situation and a
mechanism for feeding this back into the program. |
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