This article is written by Daniela Reina, Cooperation Commissioner, Palmira Mayor's Office.

  • The problem: A high homicide rate in young people (14 to 29 years old) in Palmira caused by the lack of opportunities for this population group. The phenomenon of violence is both multidimensional and multicausal and has traditionally been dealt with by the local administration through coercion.
  • Why it matters: The traditional violence reduction mechanisms generate more violence and are not oriented to solve the structural causes of lethal violence in young people. In addition, the existing programmes (private and public) are not articulated towards the same objective, which prevents the investment of resources from achieving the greatest possible impact.
  • The solution: The PAZOS (Paz y Oportunidades, Peace and Opportunities in Spanish) Strategy is a public initiative structured as an innovative alternative to traditional mechanisms based on violence reduction, which is aimed at addressing the causes of the phenomenon, and articulating the different actors and active programs in the territory to achieve optimal comprehensive care to the target population group.

Palmira: Opportunities and challenges

Palmira is one of the municipalities in southwestern Colombia; it has a strong and diverse economy with great growth potential, excellent transport connections, pro-growth city leadership and high resilience to shocks. The presence of various multinational corporations, two free trade zones, and the country's third most important international airport are just a few of the reasons why Palmira is one of Colombia's most influential intermediate cities.

However, due to a historically high homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants (98.1 in 2011, while the national average rate was 34.3), resulting from territorial control between criminal organisations and gangs, Palmira has been named one of the world's 50 most violent cities. Furthermore, as a result of unsatisfied basic needs in the population, young people stand out, accounting for 23% of the total population and 54% of all homicides in the municipality.

The PAZOS Strategy arose from a desire to create an alternative to traditional punitive and confrontational policies.

Given this backdrop, there is the challenge of proposing a comprehensive and appropriate response aimed at addressing the causes of this problem of high violence. Thus, the established goal was to reduce homicides among young people from 80 in 2020 to 66 per 100,000 inhabitants during the four-year term of government.

Who’s working on it

The government's response and commitment to improving the dynamics of urban violence falls solely on the local administration, particularly the Mayor's Office of the municipality of Palmira, and on its ability to articulate a relevant response, based on its characteristics and socioeconomic and geostrategic potential. This response is aimed at the population group of young people aged 14 to 29, who have the most influence on the dynamics of violence in the municipality. As a result, Palmira has worked with more than 15 allies between the private sector, international cooperation actors, public actors at various levels (local, regional and national), and communitarian organisations. Because of this, it has been possible to have an articulated impact on the life projects of over 250 young people.

The Palmira strategy explained

The PAZOS Strategy arose from a desire to create an alternative to traditional punitive and confrontational policies that have failed to deal with urban violence situations and have resulted in the reproduction of more violence. Now, the strategy is focused on addressing the causes of violence. This approach has proven to be a generator of legitimacy in the communities, which are normally the actors that have the most claims against the use of state force and its absence in terms of social policy and generation of opportunities.

Similarly, the cost/benefit relationship was recognised in the theoretical and methodological design of PAZOS, because money invested in prevention avoids not only the direct public costs associated with violence today but also future costs. The double functionality of public spending was also considered, since it was intended that the investment made in the different violence reduction programmes would contribute to other indicators of the government plan.

In addition, there is scientific evidence regarding the situation of urban violence that is consistent with the local reality of Palmira. The first fact is that urban violence is a complex and multi-causal phenomenon, which occurs from different structures and with different motivations. In Palmira, reported homicides respond to both causes: organised crime and coexistence problems, implying that citizens resort to violence to resolve interpersonal conflicts rather than dialogue or other forms of mediation. Secondly, both in the literature review and in the data available to the Mayor's Office of Palmira, it is clear that urban violence has a high geographical concentration, which is also usually associated with conditions of poverty, vulnerability and precariousness. This correlation generates a vicious circle in which violence becomes an obstacle to the eradication of poverty, and in turn, poverty acts as a structural factor for the reproduction of violence (Abt, 2019).

Based on the premise that violence is a complex phenomenon that must be addressed from various perspectives and that there is no single ideal solution, the Palmira Mayor's Office solution is structured as an articulating framework for various public and private programmes, both new and existing. It groups them into five components for optimal and efficient execution: interruption, intervention, prevention, safe environments and access to justice.

The inter-institutional articulation and the results that have been obtained in recent years are not only reflected locally by having the lowest homicide rate in the last 17 years; these results are also highlighted by the international community that has found in Palmira an innovative and successful example for the construction of peace. In recognition of this progress, the city received the 2022 UCLG Peace Prize for implementing the strategy with the most comprehensive and innovative approach to youth violence prevention. In the same way, the Open Society Foundations found a causal relationship between the reduction in the rates of violence in Palmira and the focused work with the youth. This can be observed in the impact evaluation carried out on the beneficiaries of the PAZOS program, since 86% of these young people have already prepared their resumes and 67% have had the opportunity to participate in calls for employment.

Lessons learned in Palmira

The pandemic hampered open citizen participation in the strategy's design. However, once this obstacle was overcome, the strategy shifted its focus to various tools that enable the inclusion and continuous feedback of the communities involved and the target population. The Resilience Dialogues methodology is currently developed in collaboration with the organisation Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GITOC), to increase the capacity of communitarian organisations. These actors are essential in countering organised crime groups' dominance and recruiting dynamics.

We learn at the Mayor's Office about the importance of socialisation and the involvement of the municipality's law enforcement and security agencies, who have traditionally approached the problem of violence reduction and for whom a new approach such as PAZOS represents an unconventional public response. They used to focus on the manifestations of violence, but with PAZOS, we're all focusing on the structural causes of crime and violence.

Both lessons emphasise the importance of developing these multi-sectoral strategies in the most inclusive and open manner possible, as the country's first public policy for violence prevention is currently being developed in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, (UNODC).

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(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)