CITIZEN PARTICIPATION AS A MECHANISM FOR COLLECTIVE CONSTRUCTION OF PEACE AND TERRITORIAL GOVERNANCE: A READING FROM THE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS WITH A TERRITORIAL APPROACH (PDET) AND ACTION PLANS FOR REGIONAL TRANSFORMATION (PATR)

Abstract

Five years after the signing of the Peace Agreement between the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP (November 24, 2016), it is reasonable to carry out a pertinent reading with the participatory and territorial approach established in point 1 of said Final Agreement, the Comprehensive Rural Reform (RRI), whose transversal components are the Development Programs with a Territorial Approach (PDET), as “instruments of reconciliation in which all its actors work in the construction of the supreme good of peace, right and mandatory duty compliance ”, according to Decree Law 893 of 2017 (Presidency of the Republic, 2017); consolidating itself as legal and community mechanisms, vital for the full implementation of the agreement, since it articulates the different approaches of the Agreement such as: the participatory, territorial, ethnic, gender, reparative and differential approaches.

Based on the aforementioned Decree Law, this article reviews the importance and purpose of the Development Programs with a Territorial Approach (PDET) for the construction of territorial peace in prioritized areas, as well as the tool for its operationalization, the Action Plans for Regional Transformation (PATR) with which the Development Programs with a Territorial Approach (PDET) materialize, specifying the potential of transforming citizen participation as a mechanism of collective construction to strengthen territorial governance, in the Colombian post-conflict stage.

To resolve the central question formulated by the authors: ¿what has been the role and effectiveness of the Development Programs with a Territorial Approach (PDET)s and PATRs as mechanisms of citizen participation for collective construction and territorial governance in the Colombian post-conflict scenario?sociolegal, collecting relevant information in primary sources -for the Colombian government- and secondary in literature, regulations, doctrine and jurisprudence.

It was concluded that it has not been possible to obtain the expected effectiveness of the citizen participation mechanisms, due to the swings, biases, intrigues and obstacles that the national government has prevented from fulfilling the commitments agreed in the Peace Agreement (especially the first), in the face of the given change -bias- of the Ministry for Stabilization and Consolidation, from where almost everything regarding the Development Programs with a Territorial Approach (PDET) was planned -together with the ATR-, but with a low level of real execution. From another angle, the high levels of violence, insecurity and permanent murder of social leaders and human rights defenders in cahoots with the impunity and indifference of the state apparatus,
have decimated citizen participation and prevented the consolidation of communities in their goal of achieving a territorial governance that dignifies the quality of life of the population.