In Colombia, peace means sustainable development

By Monica Lanzetta

After more than 50 years the government of Colombia led by President Juan Manuel Santos put an end to the armed conflict through negotiations and the signing of a definite and bilateral ceasefire with the FARC guerilla group, in Havana on June 23rd, 2016.

Many attempts were made during the last decades; however only the government of President Santos has succeeded in the goal of stopping the armed conflict in Colombia.

All this in a negotiating process that was firmly supported by the international community including international organizations such as the United Nations.

President Santos put in motion this peace process in 2012, which after multiple challenges and more than 50 rounds of complex negotiations has reached agreements with the FARC on six matters: agrarian reform, political participation, drug problem and illegal crops, transitional justice and reparation for victims, final ceasefire, and implementation, verification and democratic approval of agreements.

To sanction the outcome of the negotiations President Santos adopted the initiative to celebrate a plebiscite for the people of Colombia to decide and express support or disaccord to the peace agreements reached to finalize the armed conflict, which after being approved by the Constitutional Court, eventually will take place in the coming weeks.

In Colombia peace means sustainable development. Huge economic benefits will derive from the decision of solving the armed conflict and attaining peace in Colombia.

Experts have calculated that, as a result of succeeding in the peace process, the Colombian GDP would double every 9 years, which is twice the current economic growing pace of the country.
It is also expected that the per-capita income, being currently 6,800 dollars, could reach 12,000 dollars in just a decade; foreign direct investment (FDI) in Colombia is expected to represent nearly 36 billion dollars in the coming years, compared to 12 billion dollars in 2015 which places Colombia within the top world 20 in terms of FDI flows.

It is well known that Colombia is one of the mostbiodiverse countries on earth. That is why one additional dividend of peace is noticing that putting an end to the war implies that Colombia will save 2.3 billion dollars that every year have to be used to face the environmental degradation caused by the armed conflict.

Thank to peace, Colombia will not pay any more for recovering deforested areas associated to the armed conflict, medical services due to mercury-related illness derived from illegal mining, as well as cleaning of waste oil and recovery of ecosystems affected by terrorist attacks on pipelines.

The new peaceful environment will deeply improve the quality of life of Colombian people, as well as generate unimaginable business opportunities for investors, both national and foreign.

The war is over. The dream of seeing the last day of the conflict came true. A new Colombia is germinating in the land of peace. The social and economic miracle from long lasting and stable peace is already on going.

(Writer is Ambassador of Colombia in India)