How will Project Management activities be benefited by the peace treaty in Colombia?

I am very excited because I expect that the peace treaty will boost the start of many infrastructure projects that have been long delayed and have hurt the country so much in its competitiveness. It will be like a waterfall, as following the infrastructure projects, private investment projects will start to boost Colombia´s economy. I also agree with Stéphane: risk and costs will be greatly reduced, not only because investments in security will drop (in some places in Colombia, private companies should contract security from the armed forces and make heavy investments in security) but also because infrastructure (roads mainly, and I hope, trains will be back) will reduce project costs. Infrastructure is very important because Colombia is a heavily centralized country, so transportation costs of goods from sea ports to production centres add so much to the final price of resources.

It should reduce risk mitigation, contingency and fallback actions. That will translate in reduced project costs.

Hi

The peace will be a factor to accelerate the investment en many areas, Commerce, Infrastructure, IT, Social.

I see many projects founded with money form USAID, ONU, Goverment etc. Just think in the effort to reincorporate hundreds of families of guerrilla to the civil life. All this projects needs PM's Yeah!!!

in other way the legal companies will have more warranties to develop and operate new project without the influence of guerrilla groups.

have a nice day

Fabio - I'm interested in your comments.

(1) Can you expand why you think there will be no budget for funding infrastructure projects that will benefit PMs?

(2) Are they other groups that are still active? I thought this peace treaty was for all groups. Can you expand?

George, let me expand:

1) Why I don't see any budget:

1a) The fall in the oil prices has reduced the fiscal income, with an impact greater than 2% of the GDP. The government financial deficit is around 8% of the GDP. They are planning to propose an increase in taxes to try and balance their accounts. I don't believe the new taxes will generate a short-term budget surplus that might fund new infrastructure projects.

1b) Taking foreign debt is a tough option, when the exchange rate COP/USD raised from 1900 to 3000 in less than two years.

1c) In the end of 2015 the government has launched an initiative for new toll roads under a PPP model, called 4G. Those are roads with heavy traffic, so one would expect they would be highly bankable projects. As far as I know, very few of those have achieved financial closure. It means there is a shortage of credit for this kind of projects in the national banking sector.

2) Apart of FARC, there are other two major similar groups: EPL (I am not sure if they are in the peace treaty or not) and ELN (not in the treaty). Then there are paramilitary groups, which are right-wing and were created to combat the FARC. Then there are the BACRIM ("bandas criminals"), which are organized criminal groups that grew in areas where the State was absent due to the FARC. Then there are illegal drug producers, who may or may not be linked to the other groups. It's a complicate web, and they all operate in the area where those infrastructure projects would be developed.

The peace treaty is great news and an excellent first step. The projects will surely come. I just don't think they will unfold in the short term and in ideal conditions.

How will Project Management activities be benefited by the peace treaty in Colombia?

Will it? Yes? No?

PLEASE - Answers straight to PM related activities / no political responses.

Hi, George, I think this depend on what kind of policies will be established and followed up by Colombian state (not government, I make clear about this) on different project portfolios that will (and should) appear on post-confict. Nowadays, there are some vague ideas about it, but nothing clear.

Thank you.