Canada announces projects in Colombia to support most vulnerable populations

Canada has announced $29.5 million in development assistance for 6 projects to support high-quality education, peace and economic prosperity in Colombia caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis in Venezuela.

Innovative approaches to ensuring vulnerable children and adolescents receive high-quality education: $20 million over 8 years

This project is a public- and private-sector fund that will create a marketplace for affordable education solutions that can be expanded to serve the most vulnerable in Colombia. It will strengthen the education ecosystem and improve education public policy, using a results-based payment approach to achieve greater impact. Canada’s contribution will leverage co-financing investments from 4 of Colombia’s leading private sector foundations. Colombia’s Ministry of Education is a partner key to the sustainability of the marketplace.

Support the economic empowerment of rural women and youth: $5 million

This project will extend credit to rural women and youths in Colombia. It will also provide financial institutions with evidence-based information to help them develop loan products for these underserved populations as a long-term profitable market. In close collaboration with Colombian technical training authorities, it will also develop and deliver an education program that will help rural women and youth prepare viable projects and present them to financial institutions.

This project will leverage significant additional co-financing from other stakeholders. The project will be implemented by Développement International Desjardins.

Supporting peace and security in regions most impacted by conflict: $3.5 million

Canada’s contribution to the UN Post-conflict Multi-Partner Trust Fund for Colombia aims to support the implementation of the peace agreement between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The funding will support strengthening state presence and capacity in municipalities most impacted by the conflict, providing collective reparation for victims and communicating progress in implementing the peace agreement to counter destabilizing messages and promote a culture of peace and reconciliation.

Addressing the increase in post-peace agreement violence: $654,709

This project aims to contribute to the implementation of the ethnic chapter of the Colombian peace agreement through a feminist lens and help to address the increase in post-peace agreement violence, particularly sexual and gender-based violence, against Afro-Colombian women and girls in the Norte del Cauca, Tumaco and Barbacoas, Buenaventura and Caribe regions. The project will be implemented by MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization.

Delivering education services using radio and television during the COVID-19 pandemic: $225,000

This project will develop and implement educational content to strengthen the learning processes of vulnerable populations at different academic levels (initial, basic primary, secondary and post-secondary education) through an audio streaming channel, with output on digital terrestrial television. This channel will deliver curricular activities through the public media, taking advantage of television’s high penetration in Colombia—it reaches more than 93% of Colombian households. The project will be led and co-financed by Radio Televisión Nacional de Colombia [Colombian national radio television] and the ministries of National Education and of Information and Communications Technology.

Engaging Colombia in Canada’s Together for Learning Campaign: $100,000

Canada will launch a joint research project with the Government of Colombia to explore and deepen the data on the main challenges migrant and refugee girls face in accessing education. Canada will also consider short-term technical assistance (through the Field Support Services project) to the Government of Colombia to strengthen its institutional capacity to detect and prevent violence against young children and adolescents by using big data, early warning protocols and predictive models of violence.