After 50 years of armed conflict between guerrilla organisations, paramilitary groups and the country’s army, a peace agreement was signed with the FARC guerrilla group at the end of 2016. Its implementation, particularly a clear focus on support for the conflict-torn regions of the country, has been a key in setting the course for Colombia’s future development.

The Colombian Government already uses sport as an instrument for development policy in the context of its peace and reconci­liation activities. For this reason, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has selected Colombia as a partner country for the S4D programme. The programme aims to use sport in order to strengthen the competences children and young people need to coexist peacefully in a democratic society, and to contribute to the social (re)integration of internally displaced people; above all, children and the young. The priority areas are regions affected by con­flict, violence and displacement. In the context of the ongoing peace process, the integration of formerly active participants in Colombia’s armed conflict also plays an important role.

Collectively, the partners have developed a method called ‘Deporte con Principios’ (‘sport with principles’). It uses sport to teach children and young people values like respect and team spirit, and to give them social competences. The method draws on concepts of football for peace that already exist in Colombia, as well as international S4D approaches, modern sports teaching methods and findings from the field of youth psycho­logy. Through the three stages of training in a course of several weeks’ duration, which it provides to coaches, teachers and social workers, the programme underpins positive behavioural changes among the children and young adults.

The sport-pedagogical qualification of coaches and teachers is the main component of our advanced education and training programmes in the field of S4D ("Capacity Development on Individual Level"). In Colombia, workshops for teachers and coaches focus on peace building and conflict resolution in the border regions. Below you will find workshop documents from Colombia which give you some insight into workshop contents and discussions.

We invite you to have a look at the following teaching and learning material, which was created by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and our partner organizations in Colombia. You will find a more detailed description about the materials in our collection S4D Tools for your Practice/Teaching and Learning Materials. 

For further impressions, please have a look into the following videos:  “Café con Juego” and “Deporte Con-Vivencias”

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is an essential part of any S4D programme and all activities on the ground. The M&E tools below have been developed in cooperation with the German Sport University Cologne (DSHS). They were applied in different working contexts in Colombia. If you are interested in M&E, this S4D Resource Toolkit offers you additional comprehensive information about M&E in the field of S4D and provides further hands-on M&E tools for your own practice.

If you want to have more detailed and/or further information about S4D in the country, please have a look at the following publications and at the Platform for S4D in Latinamerica: Plataforma para el Deporte, el Desarrollo y la Paz.