IFIT - Regional exchanges for peace, democracy and human rights

During the second year of implementation (2023-2024), IFIT promoted higher levels of influence and engagement of civil society actors in policymaking, which was observable through the provision of expert advice, policy assessments and recommendations to local and national decision-makers in the countries of intervention. Between September 2023 and August 2024, IFIT held thirty-eight brain trust meetings (twenty-one in Colombia, five in Mexico and twelve in Venezuela); three strategic retreats (two for the National and Territorial Trusts in Colombia and one for the Venezuela Expert Group); eight in-depth field visits (six in Colombia and two in Mexico); and five international stakeholder tours (two in the United States, one in Colombia and three in Europe). These spaces were useful for strategic planning, contextual analysis, definition of priorities and planning of strategic interventions. *Colombia: IFIT´s work during the period focused on the support of the peacebuilding processes in Colombia through their National Brain Trust and Territorial Trust. The collection of inputs, ideas and analysis generated via the activities of both brain trusts resulted in a set of policy documents and recommendations for 1) enhancing the legal and political viability of the Total Peace Policy, 2) strengthening local-level peace negotiations and peacebuilding efforts, and 3) addressing bottlenecks in the Peace Agreements implementation (Output 1.2). Their work was encompassed within the following topics: - Enhancing the Viability of the Total Peace Policy - Local Peace Negotiations and Peacebuilding Efforts - 2016 Peace Agreement Implementation - Narrative Peacebuilding Resources *Mexico: IFITs work in Mexico focused on: 1) advocacy in political campaigns, electoral observation and analysis of electoral trends and results, with a focus on security and justice; 2) raising awareness of the effects of polarisation on electoral processes and democratic consensus building; 3) promoting local dialogues on violence and peace at the subnational level to deepen understandings of local dynamics of violence; and 4) exploring the dilemmas, challenges and opportunities of using negotiation tools with organised crime groups in Mexico. Their work focused the following topics: - Electoral Engagements - Local Dialogues on Violence and Peace - Tools for Dealing with Organised Crime Groups *Venezuela: Within the context of closure of dialogue space, the increased levels of repression and increased polarisation after the presidential elections, IFIT and the Venezuela Expert Group continue to work to bring about greater stability, inclusion and prospects for a sustainable transition through: 1) the provision of key technical inputs to help advance the negotiations between the government and the opposition in the Mexico process; 2) the 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 (with a focus on post-electoral guarantees); and 3) the organisation of engagement actions with key international actors, such as the United States, the European Union and Colombia. In Venezuela, the work was concentrated on: - Technical Inputs to the Negotiations in Mexico - Planning on Key Elements of Venezuelas Transition - Engagement with International Actors *Regional work: The focus was on two main areas: providing expert advice and analysis on electoral threats, and updating the concept of integral transitions in Latin America. In response to the many elections in Latin America, IFIT provided comparative analysis of trends and patterns affecting the realisation of free and fair elections. Simultaneously, IFIT is in the process of updating the traditional concept of transitions in the region and in June 2024, they convened a regional exchange to present its updated conceptual framework on transitions to democracy. With this, IFIT aims to inform better decision-making across the region. By providing accurate and updated analytical frameworks, they seek to equip policymakers, civil society and international actors with the tools needed to address Latin Americas current challenges effectively. IFIT continued to promote the systematic transfer of knowledge and lessons learnt across different Latin American contexts by various means. These included three meetings of the Regional Advisory Council for Latin America (CoALi), four regional exchanges with members of the Latin American brain trusts, three capacity-building workshops for lesson sharing, and regionally informed targeted advice to two countries in the region. For this knowledge to be available to a wider audience, in 2024 IFIT Latin America launched IFITeCuenta, a podcast of three- to five-minute capsules with in-depth analyses on security, peacebuilding and justice issues in the region. IFIT organized the first regional advisory council meeting (CoALi) focused on evaluating the potential and direction of IFITs Regional Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean. The discussions centred on key regional challenges, including security, democracy and regional integration. CoALi members provided feedback on IFITs work in Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela. Also, they organized regional exchanges focused on analysing electoral trends and threats to electoral authorities, capacity-building workshops with various actors on peacebuilding and public security policiess in Colombia and in Mexico, elaborated inputs to support problems in specific countries such as Ecuador and Haiti and polarisation. Finally, they developed a new research initiative on fast-track negotiations, which aims to develop a fast negotiation model that addresses the urgent local changes needed in many crisis and conflict situations worldwide.

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.