By Raiñero Patiño M., CAMBIOColombia, July 1, 2025
https://cambiocolombia.com/pais/caminos-comunitarios-otro-chicharron-paz-total-donde-bien-donde-mal
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
In 2024, the national government appropriated an investment of more than 427,000 million pesos (roughly USD $105,500,000 at current exchange rates) for the Community Roads program.
Between 2022 and 2024, the program has underwritten more than 1,000 agreements with a budget of 766,701 million pesos (roughly USD $190,000,000 at current exchange rates). The majority of the projects are more than 90% complete, but several departments are lagging badly.
Critics of “Total Peace” are raining on its parade. This Program, one of President Petro’s flagship programs, was created by Statute 418 of 2022, and was advertised as “a new social contract” to guarantee the people’s fundamental rights, but it has been fiercely criticized and even used as a political tool by his opposition. In practice, that includes the negotiations with different illegal armed groups in the country, which has turned it into one of the most critical issues for the Petro administration because of its results.
But in addition, there is a component of infrastructure development through association with community organizations. Those include the Community Roads program for Total Peace. The Program is operated by the National Roads Institute (Invías in Spanish), and its principal function is to improve the country’s network of tertiary roads by carrying out infrastructure projects with the requirement that these projects have to include direct participation by the local communities.
Analysis of results shows some strong contrasts. Up to December 31, 2024, more than ten departments had achieved 100% physical accomplishment of the agreements that had been signed, including Huila, Cundinamarca, Chocó, and Antioquia. But others, like Tolima, with 49.5% carried out, Risaralda with 63.1%, Cauca with 67.4%, and Casanare with 69.4%, are lagging badly. The worst case is in Vichada, where only 5% has been carried out.
The Program was launched in September 2022, and since then there have been more than 1,000 agreements signed in municipalities in 29 departments, with an important total investment of 766,701 million pesos (roughly USD $190,000,000 at current exchange rates). In 2023, for example, 233,853 million pesos (roughly USD $57,700,000 at current exchange rates) were allocated to the National Budget for the road projects. During 2024, the amount was increased to 469,648 million pesos (roughly USD $116,000,000 at current exchange rates), and in 2025 the amount reached 63,200 million pesos (roughly USD $15,600,000 at current exchange rates) were added.
The contracting model works through solidarity agreements with Community Action Boards (JAC in Spanish) and ethnic organizations that have to take charge of carrying out projects like “tread plates”[1], rigid and flexible pavement, box culverts, and sewer lines in rural areas, among other things.
A recent report by the Colombian Chamber of Infrastructure (CCI in Spanish) rolls its eyes over the “Total Peace” Program, because there are some departments where nothing at all has been carried out. This is not surprising because there have been no contracts or investments in those parts of the country. Amazonas and Guainía lead that list, two departments that have suffered historically from the illegal armed groups, which “bolsters the existence of a territorial gap in the coverage and development of the Program,” concludes the report.
Concentration and more kilometers
An analysis of the information provided by Invías shows that there is a concentration of agreements in some departments. In Cauca, for example, 86 agreements have been signed, and Cundinamarca follows with 85 and Tolima with 83. That could be seen as a significant prioritization in those territories, “possibly because of their necessity for rural connections or for their capacities for community organization.”
But other departments, like Vichada, with 2, and Voupés, with 1, are at the bottom of the list. “This shows low participation, which could be associated with factors like dispersed population, difficulties with access, or fewer formalized organizations in those regions.” Because of that, the analysis maintains that the distribution shows a different kind of territorial focus in the implementation of the Program.
With regard to the distribution by the number of kilometers contracted, there’s also evidence of disproportion among the departments. Boyacá leads the list, with agreements for 245 kilometers, and Cundinamarca follows with 186 kilometers, Huila with 136 kilometers, and Cauca with 126. In the other extreme there are, once again, the departments in the south and west of the country like Voupés, Vichada, Guainía, and Amazonas, who don’t have even one single kilometer contracted. “The difference with high and low operation shows territorial disparities in the implementation of the Program,” the CCI points out.
The concentration of agreements, of course, is reflected in the budget allocations for each department. Cauca, Cundinamarca, and Tolima together had more than 15,000 million pesos (roughly USD $3,749,446 at current exchange rates) budgeted; and departments like Nariño, Santander, and Huila together have values between 5,000 million pesos (roughly USD $1,250,000 at current exchange rates) and 15,000 million pesos (roughly USD $3,750,000 at current exchange rates), signifying a high investment.
Analysis and responses
In November 2024, The Controller General warned of “the Program’s critical situation” and characterized its execution as “lagging”. He pointed out that while 8 trillion pesos (roughly USD $2,000,500,128 at current exchange rates) had been predicted to be invested in the Program for 33,102 kilometers, only 524,798 million pesos (roughly USD $131,232,308 at current exchange rates) had been spent.
That analysis was rejected by Invías, saying that beyond possible unforeseen events, some of those because of adverse weather conditions for some projects, they were working to carry them out and were just waiting for the availability of funds to be able to continue signing contracts.
In his recent analysis, Juan Carlos Montenegro, Director of Invías, said that, in getting the 2023 Program started, the administration received 29,000 requests from community action organizations in the country. They were identifying interest rates and proposing projects.
Out of that number of proposals, 26,000 met the legal requirements for signing agreements, so that in the second half of 2023, the administration signed 1,035 community agreements with these organizations.
For 2024, 1,041 agreements were signed with community action organizations, as well as 84 administrative agreements with indigenous communities and those known as NRAP, namely organizations of Blacks, Raizales[2], AfroColombian, and Palenqueros[3].
That means an investment in 2024 of more than 427,000 million pesos (roughly USD $106,800,000 at current exchange rates). The performance of the contracted projects was begun in October and November of last year, and in February 2025, 260 of the projects were under way, out of the 1,041 that had signed contracts.
More money, less performance
The published analysis of the performance of the Community Roads Program is included within the CCI’s Infrastructure Completion report. It presents a macroeconomic diagnosis of the sector and a close analysis of the principal licensed transportation infrastructure projects of public works in the highway, airport, port, and railway sectors.
The document points out that although the budget assigned to the transportation sector in the National Budget (PGN in Spanish) is the highest in the last six years, passing from 8.2 trillion pesos in 2019 (roughly USD $2,050,500 000 at current exchange rates) to 17.3 trillion pesos in 2025 (roughly USD $4,300,000,000 at current exchange rates), the CCI established that in 2024, the three principal entities of the sector (Invías, ANI, and Aerocivil) registered lower levels of contract performance, even below their level of performance during the pandemic. That, according to the report, is the consequence of fiscal restrictions, and loss of monthly liquidity faced at the time by Colombia’s public financial situation.
In the case of Invías, the budget went from 3.3 trillion pesos in 2019 (roughly USD $825,200,000 at current exchange rates) to 3.9 trillion pesos in 2025 (roughly USD $975,200,000 at current exchange rates), which meant a variation of 40.7 % of the total budget for the sector in 2019 to 22.7 % in 2025. And in the case of Civil Aeronautics, the budget allocation in 2019 was 1.4 trillion pesos (roughly USD $350,000,000 at current exchange rates), while in 2025 it was 3.1 trillion pesos (roughly USD $775,200,000 at current exchange rates), which went from representing 17.8% of the total budget for the sector in 2019 to 18% in 2025.
The problem is that the tendency for minimal performance of the agreements has been maintained in the first months of 2025. Between January and April of this year, the transportation sector had obligated funds for 59.6% of the sector budget, but only 11.9 % of the funds had been spent to pay for performance of contracts. That left the transportation sector as the second most productive sector in the Colombian economy, except that it had the lowest level of performance in the period measured.
Comparison of the figures for the period analyzed in 2025 with the same period in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 shows that not only Invías, but also Aerocivil, in spite of the fact that in 2025 they had obligated more funds than in the six previous years, their levels of contract performance up to now are lagging behind. The foregoing, explained the CCI, suggests weaknesses in the levels of monthly liquidity assigned by the Ministry of the Treasury and Public Credit.
The real situation is that the development of large public works is seen as a social control and mobilizer, and that’s why effective contract performance is so important in different regions of the country, especially in those that have been harshly affected by the armed conflict and the new forms of violence. They’re right to say around there that public works are love, and why not, because they are the road to peace.
[1] “Tread plates” refers to a kind of road construction used in rural or tertiary roads where concrete slabs are laid down to create a pathway for vehicles.
[2] Raizal people are a Black Colombian ethnic group frpm the Archjpelago of San Amdrés, Providencia, Santa Catalina on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
[3] Palenqueros are an Afro-Colombian people living in San Basilio de Palenque. They speak a unique language.