Within the framework of the local and regional advocacy strategy that it has been developing since August 2023, IRI-Colombia trained more than 50 municipal and departmental territorial planning councilors of Guaviare, during the workshop on Development Plans that it held on March 5 at the Facredig auditorium in the capital of Guaviare.
During the pedagogical meeting, the expert in participatory planning of the National Planning Department, Laura Luján, gave a lecture on the Territorial Planning Councils, their composition, organization and main functions. For his part, the expert in Development Plans and advisor to IRI-Colombia, Diego Dorado, offered a conference in which he addressed different aspects related to this planning instrument, its formulation process and the different aspects that territorial planning councilors must take into account when analyzing them and issuing their recommendations. Likewise, the importance of including the impact of deforestation on the territory within the diagnosis of the general bases, one of the components of the Development Plan, to ensure that the Multiannual Investment Plan, another of its components, takes into account budget items to develop programs aimed at controlling deforestation and protecting Amazonian tropical forests.
In addition, the national advisor of IRI-Colombia, Carlos Augusto Lozano, gave a talk on tropical forests and deforestation, in which he highlighted the impact of this scourge on the territory and its relationship with climate change.
More than 50 municipal and departmental planning councilors, representing different sectors of society such as economic, social, ecological or religious, participated in the workshop. Among them, Pastor William Porras, coordinator of the local chapters of IRI in San José del Guaviare and departmental planning counselor, and Pastor Luz Dary Arango, member of IRI-San José del Guaviare and planning counselor of the municipality, both representatives of IRI-Colombia in this instance of participatory planning.
This training process corresponds to the third phase of IRI-Colombia’s advocacy strategy, whose purpose is to make the protection of the Amazon a priority for local and regional governments – whose mandate began on January 1, 2024 and will last for four years – reflected in the programs and projects formulated in the Development Plans, which will be the roadmap of the 14 municipalities and three Amazonian departments in which IRI-Colombia has a presence through its 42 local chapters.
