Successful development programmes in drug-producing regions

There have not been any significant successful alternative development projects resulting from Plan Colombia, due in part to under-funding and poor management. However, in the Middle Magdalena region of northern Colombia, which encompasses 29 municipalities along the middle section of the Magdalena River, the Middle Magdalena Program for Peace and Development has provided alternatives to coca growers even though it has not been specifically designed as a counter-narcotics programme.

The Middle Magdalena region is one of Colombia’s most violent areas with high levels of extreme poverty and illiteracy. Father Francisco de Roux founded the Middle Magdalena Program for Peace and Development and an affiliated Peace Laboratory in 1995. Initial funding came from the state-owned oil company Ecopetrol and the Catholic Church. Later the project received funds from the World Bank, the Colombian government and the European Union, which has refused to back Plan Colombia because of its military focus.

The Program for Peace and Development operates 340 projects involving 30,000 people throughout the region. These projects include African palm and cacao growing co-operatives, school programs, aqueduct systems, productivity improvement, housing, and community workshops. All the projects emphasize local control in order to strengthen communities and to help them develop economically, socially and politically.

In reference to providing alternatives to coca growers, Father de Roux points out, “In order to be coherent, you must start with the persons that are in the centre of the problem and take into consideration not only the production of the coca, but the whole society, the whole regional economy, the entire regional institutional development. Only with a coherent, integral approach, can the problem be solved. And trust the people! They don’t want to be in the coca production.”

Ironically, some of the more effective crop substitution programmes appear to have been implemented by the FARC. In many of the rural regions under its control, the FARC is requiring peasants who choose to cultivate coca to devote at least thirty percent of their land area to alternative crops, particularly subsistence food crops. In some FARC-controlled regions, it has been reported that coca cannot constitute more than 25 percent of a farmer’s crop production. The objective is to allow farmers to earn additional income through coca cultivation in order to help alleviate their poverty while preventing them from abandoning traditional crops entirely and becoming completely dependent on the illicit drug trade.

Short version