In 2016, the former President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, current Chair of the Elders, and featured speaker in this event, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize as he led the peace process in Colombia.

After 50 years of conflict, Colombia’s 2016 Peace Agreement did not come easily – it required strategy, diplomacy, fearless determination, and timing. This event at the University of Oxford will mark the tenth anniversary of one of the most significant peace processes of recent decades, and do so from a world roiled by complex conflicts. It will look back at how that peace was won, and look forward to how Colombia’s process could inspire similar steps forward in our times. No peace process is perfect, yet a decade on, Colombia’s experience illuminates the complex but very real possibilities of transitioning from armed conflict to sustainable peace, including the interplay between institutional implementation, territorial realities, and societal reconciliation.

In this event, Juan Manuel Santos will reflect on the peace process, now from a global vantage point and clearly delineate the most critical actions. He will consider the extent to which Colombia’s experience offers transferable lessons for other contexts navigating the challenges of peacebuilding in an increasingly complex global environment with overlapping crises.

The event will provide an opportunity to explore how the Peace Accord was designed to advance social and economic development alongside peace, with a focus on those most vulnerable. It will also highlight how the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was used to identify areas severely affected by conflict and with higher levels of multidimensional poverty. Participants will hear directly from communities that have made significant progress and are beginning to turn a corner on poverty.

Highlighting how the peace accords are brought to life every day in the local communities, President Santos will next moderate a discussion featuring two Colombian women entrepreneurs. From fashion and coffee to tourism and then multidimensional poverty measurement, the discussion will highlight how diverse actions in and beyond government did and continue to cultivate peace and inclusive development. Their perspectives will complement a broader reflection on how peace agreements are experienced, adapted, and sustained beyond formal negotiations. By bringing together high-level political insight and grassroots innovation, these voices will explore key questions around implementation, legitimacy, and the role of new generations and avenues of action in shaping post-conflict sustainable trajectories.

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This event is co-hosted with The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).

Juan Manuel Santos

Juan Manuel Santos served as President of Colombia for two terms (2010-2014 and 2014-2018) and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his efforts to end a civil war of more than 50 years in Colombia. Juan Manuel Santos is the current Chair of The Elders, and is member of the Planetary Guardians. 

Santos is author of The Battle Against Poverty, a book that documents Colombia’s successful experience reducing multidimensional poverty after the adoption of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) as an official national measurement. Juan Manuel Santos is the founder of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) with the Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen.

Since his presidency, Juan Manuel Santos  has been Angelopoulos Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School; Visiting Professor of development at Oxford University; George Ball Visiting Professor at Columbia University; Special Professor at Universidad Nacional de Colombia; and, Senior Policy Fellow and distinguished Visiting Professor at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He is the founder of the Compaz Foundation, a non-profit organisation to promote peacebuilding in Colombia.  Santos was a Visiting Professor at OPHI (2020-2023).