IFIT - Regional exchanges for peace, democracy and human rights

During the first year of this contribution (August 2022 - September 2023), IFIT made significant progress nationally and regionally towards ensuring higher levels of influence and engagement of civil society actors in policymaking. This was achieved, inter alia, by ensuring safe spaces for IFIT country brain trust members for planning, brainstorming, and formulating ideas around key issues in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela. This effect was observable in their provision of expert advice, policy assessments and recommendations to local and national policymakers. IFIT has presented results at the national level in the countries where they carry out activities. They held 37 brain trust meetings (18 in Colombia, 7 in Mexico, and 12 in Venezuela); 5 strategic retreats (1 for the Territorial Trust in Colombia, 3 for the Venezuela Expert Group, and 1 for the Mexico Brain Trust); 10 in-depth field visits (4 in Colombia, four in Venezuela and 2 in Mexico); and 3 international stakeholder tours (one in Washington D.C., one in Colombia and one in Europe). These spaces were very useful for strategic planning, contextual analysis, definition of priorities, and planning of strategic interventions: *Colombia: the activities were focus on three main issues: 1)Security and drug policies, 2) Peace Agreement implementation and 3) total peace policy. In some of the events organized by IFIT, they have invited colleagues from the embassy in Bogota (both Sida and the political officers of the MFA) to be part of the activities. This has been a good opportunity to participate in the dialogue and to have context analysis provided by the experts that are working at the local level, as well as high-level experts with knowledge on the political and peace work in Colombia. *Mexico: During the reporting period, IFIT's work in Mexico focused on three areas: 1) understanding the impact of violence and the role of various sectors, including the Armed Forces and private sector, in advancing peacebuilding; 2) promoting local dialogues on violence and peace at the subnational level to deepen understanding of local dynamics of violence; and 3) exploring the dilemmas, challenges, restrictions, and opportunities of using negotiation tools with organised crime groups. IFIT has also invited colleagues from the embassy of Sweden in Mexico to participate in some of the meetings held, providing a space for Sweden to be part of the discussions of the experts of IFIT in Mexico and the region. *Venezuela: In line with the overall aim of supporting the democratic transition and re-institutionalisation of the country, IFIT and the Venezuela Expert Group (GEV) worked during the reporting period towards three main issues: 1) the provision of key technical inputs to help advance the negotiations between the government and the opposition in the Mexico process (on issues such as management of Venezuelan assets frozen in foreign accounts, economic incentives for resuming the negotiations, and technical support formats for the negotiating parties); 2) promotion of locally-informed reflection and planning on the key policy elements of Venezuelas eventual transition to democracy, rule of law, economic recovery and social inclusion; and 3) the carrying out of engagement actions with key international actors (such as the USA, European Union and Colombia). IFIT has also presented results at the regional level. During the reporting period, IFIT consolidated its regional programme for Latin America and the Caribbean. They advanced the formation of a regional network of experts that is composed of 90 experts, with whom they have fostered regional exchanges on topics ranging from electoral analysis to democratic and security challenges in the region. To promote a more integrated regional analysis and to enhance South-South lesson sharing, they scaled the exchanges between members of their brain trusts via in-country visits, participation of brain trust members in meetings/activities of other countries they work in, and the inclusion of Latin American thematic sessions in IFIT staff retreats and global strategy meetings. In relation to the second outcome, IFIT promoted the systematic transfer of knowledge and lessons learned between different Latin American contexts and provided local and regional policymakers with creative policy concepts developed based on international knowledge from other political and violent conflict settings around the globe. In total, these exchanges were attended by 72 regional experts (53% men and 47% women) including members of IFIT brain trusts in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela (46) and important guest experts from Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Peru. In terms of knowledge transfer between different Latin American contexts, IFIT dedicated great effort to the creation of the high-level Regional Advisory Council (CoALI): an advisory body that will provide the IFIT Latin American network with critical strategic guidance and entry points. After a methodical selection and consultation process, the CoALI is now active and comprised of eleven renowned leaders (eight women and three men) from eight different countries (Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela). Regarding regional exchanges, during the reporting period, IFIT fostered eleven exchanges among dozens of brain trust members and guest regional experts (of which six were carried out within the current reporting period) on three overarching topics: the resignification of democracy, new conceptions of security and the use of force, and analysis of electoral results. In addition, IFIT is leading a major research initiative on the scope for dialogue between civic/democratic and state security sector actors in hybrid regime contexts.

The Latin America regional strategic framework for democracy and human rights of the Institution for Integrated Transitions (IFIT) aims to "bring about greater stability, inclusiveness, and respect for human rights and the rule of law in fragile and conflict-affected Latin American societies". To achieve this overarching goal, the project will leverage the potential of IFITs business model by engaging three key components: 1) in-country brain trust work: to ensure that local civil society actors participate and have influence in decision-making processes. 2) foster regional networking and peer exchanges on relevant experiences and lesson-sharing exchanges across Latin America through IFITs thematic practice groups. 3) provide an intervention logic for regional linkages to key global policy initiatives. The combination of these three components will generate two specific outcomes that, together, will contribute to the projects overarching goal. These two outcomes are: Outcome 1: Increased influence and engagement of local civil society actors in political processes and policymaking relating to human rights, democracy, and peacebuilding in conflict-affected societies. Outcome 2: Policymakers develop better-informed policies and make greater use of key knowledge on the most relevant cross-cutting lessons from conflict and democratic transitions in Latin America. The framework will be supported by a high-level Regional Advisory Council.