THREAD: Though #Colombia🇨🇴faces a migration crisis, ongoing criminal activities, and a shared border with the dictator Nicolás Maduro, the future looks bright, and the US-Colombia partnership is full of untapped potential.
In 2019, @AtlanticCouncil's #US-#Colombia Task Force released a report highlighting key areas of cooperation on counternarcotics efforts that would cripple guerrilla and #narco financing, enhance security, and improve rural livelihoods #ACColombia: bit.ly/365gEV3
Key recommendations and findings from the report 👇
📣Call on US Congress to offer resources needed to maintain the 2016 #Colombia peace agreement with #FARC. Sustained peace in rural areas will be critical for lifting those regions out of poverty.
🏡27% of rural households are impoverished in #Colombia, 57% in areas where #coca production is prevalent. Poverty fuels the drug trade and hands bad actors power; undermining one will cripple the other.
🌱60% of #coca production is concentrated in just three Colombian departments, and 44% within just 10 municipalities. Holistic intervention should be targeted to these regions to produce the biggest bang for the US buck. But how are we going to do it?
⚖The international community should provide more funding and technical assistance to formalize property rights, secure public goods, and support viable projects for economic/institutional development. Solutions will have to be driven by the market.
💰Shore up funding & governance for #PNIS, a program providing families w/monthly paychecks & technical assistance to substitute their coca w/legal crops. Of the 99k families that opted-in, 94% cut their coca. But late payments makes harder for families to buy-in.
🏛The #UnitedStates and #Colombia governments should work together to train local and nonlocal public to better serve rural municipalities and the counternarcotics projects.
🤝Find and foster partnerships between US and Colombia's private sectors; private buy-in will go a long way to promote market-driven development projects.
@SecPompeo #Colombia🇨🇴 visit is an opportunity for both countries to further invest in a relationship that is ripe with opportunity. Read more from the @AtlanticCouncil's latest #US-#Colombia Task Force report here #ACColombia: bit.ly/365gEV3
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