Information document

Canada 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 Ensure 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 market for affordable education solutions that can be scaled up to serve the most vulnerable in Colombia. It will strengthen the education ecosystem and improve public education policy, using a results-based payment approach to achieve greater impact. Canada’s contribution will leverage co-financing investments from four of Colombia’s leading private sector foundations. The Colombian Ministry of Education is a key partner for the sustainability of the market.

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

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

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

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

Canada’s contribution to the United Nations 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 the strengthening of the state’s presence and capacity in the municipalities most affected by the conflict, providing collective reparation to victims and communicating progress made in the implementation of the peace agreement to counter destabilizing messages and promote a culture of peace and reconciliation.

Fighting the increase in violence after the peace accords: $ 654,709

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

Provision of educational services on 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 education, basic primary, secondary and post-secondary) through an audio streaming channel, with output on digital terrestrial television. This channel will broadcast school activities through public media, taking advantage of the strong penetration of television 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 Information and Communication Technologies.

Engage Colombia in the Together for Learning Canada campaign: $ 100,000

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