About the Observatory. The Observatory of Restitution and Regulation of Agrarian Property Rights (Observatorio de Restitución y Regulación de Derechos de Propiedad Agraria) was born from a request for proposals issued by Colciencias aimed at creating a knowledge network to monitor public policies on restitution. Restitution itself is associated with democracy, peace and reconciliation. But, on the other hand, for several decades national and international social scientists have identified high rural inequality and the weak regulatory capacity of the state in the countryside as potential factors of violence.
The Observatory intends to monitor, assist and make theoretical and technical contributions to the implementation of the land restitution processes established in Law 1448 of June 10, 2011, the Victims’ Law, in identifying the social, political and institutional mechanisms that made dispossession possible, and to identify others that: a) will enable full and sustainable restitution, b) will contribute to propitiating the state’s regulatory capacity regarding rural property rights, and c) will promote fairness and productivity in the Colombian countryside.
It is a research and intervention program conceived to act as an intellectual and technical interface between the victims, the state, public opinion and other key stakeholders. Even though there are numerous actors and agencies that have made, and continue to make, substantial contributions on this issue, throughout the program we will adopt a perspective (institutional analysis) and will develop a set of instruments (ranging from specific decision-making analyses to political and social indicators) aimed at making specific contributions to the restitution process in the broader context of the development of government regulatory capabilities.
The key objective of the program is to develop and consolidate, through an interdisciplinary approach involving mathematics, political science, economics and law, an academic network to act as a technical and analytical center of reflection on policies for restitution of rural assets, to develop indicators on policy performance, to give early warning and act as an interface between the State and civil society and other key stakeholders involved in this task.