USAID Public Policy E-Bulletin: Support for the Victims Law

The law seeks to ensure that victims have access to all rights and services afforded to them as Colombian citizens under the constitution. USAID's Public Policy Program has been supporting the Colombian Government in regulating the law, focusing on three specific areas. The first area of focus involves designing a framework for national, regional, and local public institutions to effectively deliver services to victims. The program has been working closely with various government entities, including the Administrative Department for Social Prosperity, the Special Administrative Unit for Integral Assistance and Reparation to Victims, and the Center for Historic Memory, to design a framework for integral and coordinated assistance to victims. The program is also working to strategically use information available in the National Information Network on Victims Assistance and Recovery and to design an institutional structure that ensures sustainability and coordination among all entities. The second area of focus involves supporting the Colombian Government in achieving flexible instruments to guarantee full enjoyment of rights and developing a differentiated approach for service delivery, with emphasis on housing and sustainable livelihoods. The program is working with the government to develop a protocol for participation and improve state programs and services to make them more flexible and pertinent to the victims' needs. Additionally, the program is supporting the design of instruments for benefit distribution and the establishment of graduation criteria for victims. The third area of focus involves supporting the Colombian Government in designing fiscally viable national and regional plans for the integral assistance and reparation of victims. The program has been supporting activities such as consolidating the National Plan for Integral Assistance and Reparation to Victims, establishing a baseline methodology for the Victims Law to facilitate an impact evaluation, and conducting a fiscal analysis of the law, including the design of a financing plan. Key activities in the program include identifying gaps and obstacles in service delivery for housing, land, income generation, rehabilitation, and nutrition. The program's team of experts will provide the government with a set of recommendations for each sector, including the improvement or introduction of new regulations and recommendations on how to ensure and facilitate access to state services by the victims. The program is also supporting the regulatory process of the Victims Law, working with eight subcommittees to develop regulations in areas such as institutional, information systems, measures of satisfaction, collective reparations, rehabilitation and assistance, administrative compensation, prevention, protection, and no repetition guarantees, and livelihoods and income generation.