No turning back – Feminist approaches to aid in Colombia

Following Colombia’s landmark 2016 Peace Agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Canada stepped in with a C$57.4 million pledge to support peacebuilding. With the launch of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy in 2017, these commitments unfolded within a new policy context marked by a prioritization of gender equality (GE). This article examines the intersection of Canadian aid, justice, security, and gender in Colombia. Empirical data show that, since 2017, the GE focus has increased, with most aid programs yielding some level of GE outcomes. The article maps the impact of four Canadian funded projects along a spectrum ranging from the status quo of “gendered institutions” to “transformative change.” Applying a feminist institutionalist analysis, it argues that the impact of Canadian assistance lies in the in between space of these two extremes – marked by progress beyond the status quo but still shy of hitting the transformative mark. The article concludes that Colombia’s complex socio-political landscape overlays the agency of Canada’s implementing partners, their Southern counterparts, and the donor itself, both enabling and constraining the full transformative capacity of the intervention. The methodology combines mixed methods, including 29 semi-structured interviews with key informants in Ottawa and Bogotá.