Designing peace: the Colombian peace process

ALCANCE Y CONTENIDO

NOREF document, written by Dag Nylander, Rita Sandberg and Idun Tvedt, Norwegian guarantors in the process of peace talks carried out by the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP guerrilla, which concluded with the signing of the Peace Agreement on the 24th November 2016 after five years of negotiations. They note that the parties had extensive experience to draw on when they opened talks for the fourth time in five decades. Previous attempts had failed, but provided important lessons and references for the parties and the international community when President Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC-EP initiated contacts in total secrecy in 2010. For this report, the authors divide the peace process into three distinct phases: secret preparatory talks (2010-2011); secret exploratory talks (2012); and formal, public negotiations (2012-2016). They make a brief explanation of each of them, and offer some lessons for other peace processes.