Beyond the ‘Do No Harm’ paradigm: peacebuilding through projects for taxes in Colombia

Abstract

Over the past 70 years, corporations have become ‘partners’ in peace-building efforts in conflict-ridden contexts, acting as key actors in international and local governance. In this chapter, we focus on business involvement in peace-building in Colombia, as the 2016 Peace Agreement urged for policies to tackle some of the root causes of the conflict, calling on corporations to engage with peace-building through investment in development projects. The government created a Projects for Taxes programme to attract private investment. In this chapter, we conduct a systematic approach to the participation of corporations in this programme, focusing on the interactions of corporations with national and local governments, as well as communities. We argue that despite efforts to implement bottom-up approaches to peace and development projects, the ways in which corporations interact with the national, local governments, and communities contribute to reinforcing power asymmetries and side-lining communities.