Deadline: 18-Oct-2025
The Call for Expression of Interest (CEF/COL/20) aims to establish minimum standards for the prevention of recruitment, use, exploitation, and sexual violence against children and adolescents from Indigenous peoples and Black and Afro-Colombian communities.
The focus areas of this initiative include the prevention of recruitment, use, exploitation, and sexual violence against children and adolescents from Indigenous peoples and Black and Afro-Colombian communities, strengthening of community prevention mechanisms, defining and implementing minimum protection standards, consolidation of training and capacity-building processes for territorial entities, and development of communication and educational strategies that counter recruitment narratives and promote dignified life plans.
The 2022–2026 National Development Plan has introduced a comprehensive approach to prevent child recruitment into organized armed and criminal groups by strengthening family and community protective environments. Recent data reveal the scale of this issue — with 318 children released from armed groups as of October 2024 and 272 cases reported in 2025 — demonstrating a significant increase compared to the previous year. The United Nations has verified a rise in serious human rights violations affecting children, especially among Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities, with girls facing heightened risks of gender-based and sexual violence.
Emerging challenges, such as the use of social media by armed groups to recruit children, underscore the need for robust preventive communication strategies. Despite existing prevention frameworks, regional disparities and institutional limitations hinder timely responses. Weak coordination, insufficient resources, and high staff turnover within local administrations further compound these challenges.
The program seeks to strengthen trust between ethnic communities and institutions, enhance community-based protection, and support the adoption of minimum protection standards in ten priority communities through collaboration with CIPRUNNA. These efforts aim to reduce barriers for Indigenous, Black, and Afro-Colombian children and adolescents, promote good practices, and facilitate scalable solutions in coordination with local and territorial authorities.
The indicative budget for this call is 1,120,000,000 COP.
For more information, visit UN Partner Portal.
