On Monday, March 16, 2026, Jonas Wolff, Head of the Research Department Intrastate Conflict and a member of the Executive Board of the German Colombian Peace Institute (CAPAZ), was invited to appear as an expert witness before the German Bundestag’s Subcommittee on “Crisis Prevention, Strategic Foresight, Stabilization, and Peacebuilding” of the German Bundestag. The agenda included an interim assessment as well as further perspectives on German-Colombian cooperation regarding the Colombian Special Jurisdiction and other institutions of the 2016 Peace Agreement. In this context, the members of the subcommittee also discussed German-Colombian security cooperation.
In his statement to the committee, Jonas Wolff outlined the precarious state of the peace agreement’s implementation: While the core provisions – namely the disarmament and demobilization of the FARC-EP guerrillas – have been successfully implemented, However, despite recent political promises to the contrary, its further implementation has been slow. In particular, little progress and unintended consequences have been observed in the areas of land reform and the security situation. Colombia is far from peace due to the fragmented expansion of armed groups in the wake of the FARC-EP demobilization—and the negotiations with a broad spectrum of armed actors initiated under the government of Gustavo Petro have done little to change this.
In the area of truth-seeking and transitional justice, however, Jonas Wolff noted remarkable progress: While special courts are setting new international standards in the legal processing of armed conflicts – including the handling of gender-based and sexual violence – the Truth Commission’s comprehensive report points the way forward in conflict resolution and peacebuilding.
In his report, Jonas Wolff emphasized the importance of German support for the peace process, which ranges from diplomacy to government and non-governmental development work, and includes the work of CAPAZ. In his recommendations, he highlighted the central role of diverse international support for peace processes. According to Wolff, this is where the future Colombian government holds the key to contributing to the implementation, expansion, and improvement of the peace agreement and its political successors, despite all obstacles.
As the hub of a broad academic network within Colombia and between Colombia and Germany, CAPAZ has been supporting efforts to build a sustainable peace in Colombia through research, teaching, and knowledge transfer since 2017. PRIF is a founding member and, together with other educational and research institutions in both countries, supports this politically independent platform, which is funded by the DAAD using funds from the Federal Foreign Office.
Further information on the situation in Colombia can be found in the PRIF Spotlight by Jonas Wolff and Johanna Calle, as well as in the PRIF Blog post by Jonas Wolff and Laura Camila Barrios Sabogal.