I am convinced that the only path to lasting peace in Colombia consists of dialogue, negotiation, cooperation, inclusion and fairness – which is also the high road to sustainable development in which nobody is left behind. I also believe that what is happening there right now is an example for the whole world.

During my recent visit to Colombia I had the opportunity to see at first hand how the peace agreement is being implemented, and at the same time to grasp the enormous challenges that consolidating the peace deal entails in the very regions that have been liberated from a war that lasted more than half a century.

I was pleased to note advances in the creation of a new institutional framework geared to making sure the peace agreement’s terms are fully implemented. The role of these institutions will be fundamental in paving the road to what the first point of the peace deal calls “a new Colombian countryside”.

Achieving the “comprehensive rural reform” agenda entails three immediate challenging tasks to which FAO can make valuable contributions.

The first is to create viable alternatives that provide rural households and farmers with incentives to replace illicit coca plantations, which have grown enormously in recent years. To do this – and it is part of the peace agreement – it is essential to create value chains linking food production and consumption and to make sure that farmers have access to functioning local markets. My own past experience in Brazil showed that public programs to buy local farm output for school feeding programs can, along with cash transfer and related programmes, accelerate this process.

The second challenge is to make sure that agricultural production is sustainable, which will entail managing the deforestation linked to generating new arable land. The peace deal requires that the new Colombian countryside be socially and environmentally sustainable, and it is crucial that the right incentives be offered to make sure that rural communities are revived and reintegrated into civil life while protecting the environment. FAO can contribute to this process through the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security.

Thirdly, we must make sure that plant and animal health issues are not ignored, especially trans-boundary diseases, whose spread will be affected both by climate change and the end of armed conflict. Despite efforts by the government and the livestock sector, a recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the town of Yacopí near Cundinamarca, has triggered alarm. FAO’s experience in facilitating the exchange of information and best practices through the South-South Cooperation initiative has much to offer here.

Peace has been clinched and now must be maintained

While achieving peace was a great achievement, keeping it may prove even more of a task for Colombia.

One step in that process is the creation of very necessary institutions such as the Territorial Renewal Agency, with which FAO recently signed a cooperation agreement and which will play a fundamental role. But an institution on its own is not enough – sustainable consolidation of the peace will require concrete results and positive examples of a new participatory model giving voice to civil society and providing farmers with access to land and markets.

FAO, along with the European Union, PNUD and Via Campesina, is partnering with the Colombian government in this process and has been designated to provide assistance in implementing the first article of the Peace Agreement, geared to the comprehensive rural reform plan and a new Colombian countryside.

To speed things up, President Juan Manuel Santos and I announced in Bogotá last Friday $8.8 million in joint initiatives using the Territorial Renewal Agency (ART) to restore livelihoods in the areas most affected by the armed conflict. These projects will allow us to work with 2 700 households in six municipalities and support the social and productive revival of their territories, increasing their incomes and strengthening local economies.

Alliance with the European Union

We have a perfect ally in this effort: the European Union.

I had the pleasure of sharing the company of Neven Mimica, European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, on this mission, which provided an opportunity to reiterate our joint support for this historical peace process in Colombia.

Indeed, it was highly significant to me that our meeting with President Santos in the Nariño Palace took place under the hopeful gaze of Colombian painter Alejandro Obregón’s “Victory of Peace” painting.

Commissioner Mimica and I announced a two-year Alliance that will allow us to provide technical help to various government entities, including the Agriculture and Social Prosperity Ministries.

We are in a historical moment destined to open a new future for Colombia, which can rely on FAO’s full support in pursuing a path full of possibilities.