The killing of social leaders: An unintended effect of Colombia's illicit crop substitution program.

A common drug policy in source countries -forced eradication- has unintended consequences in multiple dimensions. Aerial spraying in particular, has social and environmental costs including, increased violence, deforestation, and adverse health outcomes. However, there is less evidence of the unintended consequences of illicit crop substitution programs, another widely used intervention. This paper illustrates an unintended effect of the largest crop substitution program in the world, namely increased violence against social leaders. Examining the recent Colombian illicit crop substitution program implemented in 2017, this paper estimates the effect on violence towards social leaders employing an event study econometric strategy. The program increased the rate of social leader killings by 481% and the probability of a killing by 122%. The findings reveal a greater effect on municipalities where leaders oppose the expansion of illicit crops, where organized crime does not hold consolidated power, and where there is a presence of illegal armed groups. This study contributes to the literature on antidrug policies by providing empirical evidence of unintended consequences for local communities.

The substitution program on trial: progress and setbacks of the peace agreement in the policy against illicit crops in Colombia.

BACKGROUND: In 2016 the Colombian government and the country's most important guerrilla group - the FARC - signed a peace agreement that included the "definitive solution to the problem of illicit crops". That solution has not arrived. METHODS: We tracked the design and implementation of the substitution program (PNIS) included in the peace agreement using an original set of in-depth interviews, press reviews and archival material, all of which were collected in different rounds of fieldwork between 2018 and 2020 in Bogotá and three coca growing regions. RESULTS: We show that, as a product of several political pressures, the peace agreement introduced modifications to the standing policy against illicit crops that were favorable to peacebuilding, but also retained regressive aspects of that policy. However, following a shift in the balance of power, the policy returned to what it was during the war period. CONCLUSION: We conclude by discussing the importance of developing a research agenda that explores both resistances to change in illicit crops policy, and the political coalitions needed to make change sustainable.

Tough Tradeoffs: Coca crops and agrarian alternatives in Colombia.

This paper compares coca with mainstream agrarian economies in Colombia. It shows that the country's legal and illicit sectors share several fundamental characteristics and processes. Due to its very illegality, coca is endowed with positive characteristics that are not easily found elsewhere: it is a productive - even in the absence of basic public goods -, familial, labor intensive, smallholder agriculture, relatively resistant to monoculture. Furthermore, different processes of social change have mitigated some of the typical problems of agrarian frontiers linked to global markets. In turn, its illegal status also imposes extreme costs over peasants and other social sectors. On the one hand, due to coca producers can escape from the "reproductive squeeze" and extreme pattern of land concentration that affect other peasants; on the other, coca becomes an unending source of risk and distress. This contradiction puts peasants in front of very tough tradeoffs, which in turn demand a careful reconsideration of what "alternative" development can mean in the Colombian context.

Programa de desarrollo alternativo en Colombia familias guardabosques: visión desde el enfoque del desarrollo territorial rural / Alternative development program n Colombia, forest-guard families: view from thhe approach of territorial rural deveoppment

El programa Familias Guardabosques (PFGB) es una iniciativa de desarrollo alternativo que el gobierno colombiano ha ejecutado desde el año 2003 en 121 municipios y que ha beneficiado a 105.494 familias. Su principal objetivo se basa en que comunidades campesinas, indígenas y afrodescendientes abandonen voluntariamente sus cultivos ilícitos o se comprometan a nunca insertarse en esta actividad. En este artículo, se analiza el PFGB a partir de los elementos conceptuales del enfoque del Desarrollo Territorial Rural (DTR). Las reflexiones se enfocan en la necesidad de implementar un criterio territorial en las políticas de desarrollo alternativo, en donde se distinga la pluriactividad de la economía rural, una mayor integración rural - urbana, aumento de la participación, creación de una red interinstitucional entre el nivel local y nacional, y la consolidación de mancomunidades.

The Forest-Guard Families program (PFGB) is an initiative of alternative development that the Colombian government has implemented since 2003 in 121 municipalities, benefiting 105,494 families. Its main objective is for farmer, indigenous and afro-Colombian communities to voluntarily abandon the cultivation of illicit crops or to commit to never practicing this activity again. This article reviews the PFGB from the conceptual elements of the Territorial Rural Development (DTR) approach. The reflections are focused on the need to implement a territorial approach in alternative development policies, distinguishing the multiple activities of rural economy, a greater rural-urban integration, increased participation, the creation of an interagency network between local and national levels, and the consolidation of municipal associations.