Alliance in Sustainable Development

The Alliance in Sustainable Development is based on consolidated research and experience that serves as antecedent to this initiative. For 2 years Universidad del Rosario served as a platform for the “Agro-ecological Forum for sustainable cities”initiative. That initiative permitted the university to build a fabric of trust through the articulation of joint efforts and projects hand in hand with educational institutions, NGOs and social organizations. We call for the creation of the Alliance to give continuity to our joint labour and enhance the scope and impact at the regional, national and international levels.

This proposal is a priority for our nation. We pretend to only to create a space for academic reflection that will guide the horizons of action on the urgent and imperative problem of sustainable development. The Alliance will also be one of the few, perhaps, the only meeting place between the actors that have direct influence in the citizen's formation –which will ensure the longevity of the initiative.
Moreover, the Alliance pretend to play a role in the decisions and policies that affect the sustainable development.

There are many initiatives, concerns, studies, policies on sustainable development in the Colombia. However, unfortunately, these works lack of effective dialogue and interaction between them. This leaves them no impact. The Alliance intends to fill this void and wants to become the national meeting place with positive effects on citizenship and public policy. This proposal takes a territorial focus, privileging the empowerment of urban and rural social organizations. It wagers on processes of understanding and dynamics incorporated into Sustainable Development from a multidisciplinary and inclusive et territorial perspective.

The specific objectives of the Alliance are: develop curricular and non-school curricula (or horizontal) programs aimed at the actors involved in the issue of sustainable development, as well as for the educational community in training and citizens of the community; generate a platform for articulation and visibility of the networks that have been working on sustainable development issues; support and stimulate the development of research projects on sustainable development; promote the participation in public policy by actors involved in issues of sustainable development through the development of political training mechanisms.

The Alliance in Sustainable Development aims to build a national stage for the study, research, training and communication on agroecology, environment, food security, and urban agriculture, among others. This implies a series of training programs for the academic communities of each institution, as well as the citizens and local communities on the subjects of the Alliance. Likewise, the knowledge generated from these courses, seminars, workshops, etc., as well as the annual event, will form scenarios of dissemination, communication and transfer of knowledge to the general society. Furthermore, the printed and electronic publication of annual meeting Alliance reports and workshop booklets will be freely distributed, constituting effective strategies to transfer knowledge to the country.

The Alliance in Sustainable Development is a national project that aims to contribute effectively towards study, research, training and communication on issues of integral development, environment, food security, agroecology, etc. It supports an interdisciplinary perspective and the participation of all actors involved in these processes: academia, the public sector and civil society. The Alliance is to be developed by the four (4) allied universities, each with their own resources and based on their own academic, technical and logistics capacity.
The Alliance will be led and managed by the following universities in Colombia:
 Universidad del Rosario;
 Universidad Nacional de Colombia;
 Universidad de La Salle;
 Universidad Minuto de Dios.
All the aforementioned institutions have been awarded High Quality
Accreditation by the Colombian Ministry of Education, and count on the support of the following entities and organisations:
 OXFAM
 National Network of Family-based Agriculture
 Popular Cultural Action – ACPO
The General Management of the Alliance will be in charge of an Executive Committee, which will meet periodically in order to coordinate, control and evaluate the goals, activities and programs proposed in the Alliance. The Committee shall ensure the fulfilment of the purposes of the Alliance: for establishing links and networks with other institutions interested in the subjects of the Alliance, for organizing the annual and regional academic program, and for ensuring that the communicative processes between the allied universities are clear, direct and effective.
The Executive Committee will be composed of the leaders and / or persons responsible for the Alliance in the indicated universities, as well as a representative for each of the public and social organizations.

Summer Course on Climate Change and Environmental Policy in Latin America
Training cycle of Urban Agriculture directed to the Rosarista community and external Training cycle Biodiversity and Agroecology directed to the Rosarista community and external Cycle of Training of Good practices in cosumo and commercialization of the food.
Electoral Chair in Political Ecology
Course Rural Worlds
Organization of thematic conferences in the framework of the monthly agroecological market and other scenarios
Pedagogical Encounters in the Green Roof
"Virtual course on permaculture as a proposal of resilience and political resistance
Summer school Agroecologica itinerante
Center for Education for Development
Cross-section course: Contemporary Social Development
Cross-curricular course: Practice in Social Responsibility
Summer Course: Latin American Social Realities
Research Seedbed on Territories and Territorialities in Resistance
"Specialization in Family Farming
Seedbed of research on peasant studies and food sovereignty - SIECSA
Environmental management course
Graduates of continuous and permanent education in: Diploma in economic and integral valuation of goods and ecosystem services, Practical theoretical diploma in organic agriculture and soil biology and Diploma in environmental impact assessment and economic impact assessment.
"Creation of a virtual course providing the following Conferences on sustainable development issues:
• Family agriculture, rural development, sustainability and resilience of agricultural activity, territorial rural development (Prof. Jaime Forero)
• Land, sustainable rural development: new rurality, human development, good living (Prof. Wilson Vergara).
• Deep ecology, artificial ecology, environmental philosophy, environmental ethics, ontology of life, forgetfulness of life, anthropomorphism elements (Brother Ariosto Ardila).
• Access to land and gender, land governance, empowerment of rural women (Prof. Natalia Cediel)
• Advances in research projects and graduate work in the field of dissemination of agricultural innovation in the Agricultural Business Administration program (Prof. Santiago Saenz)
• Thesis in Poverty and Water (Prof. Gustavo Correa)
Completion of 6 face-to-face courses aimed at the university community on the subject of agroecology and agroecosystems (chair of undergraduate and postgraduate).
Completion of 2 courses in sustainable agribusiness aimed at the university community (undergraduate and postgraduate chairs).
Space of weekly hours in Yopal for conferences on sustainable development: economic and energetic evaluation of productive projects, family agriculture, territorial rural development
A YOPAL UTOPIA PROJECT: A professional training program in agronomic engineering for 220 young people from rural areas, with limited economic resources, and who have been affected by violence and conflict
A masters and a doctorate in Agrociencias focused on issues of: tropical agriculture, innovation, bionegocios and new rurality aimed at the Colombian and Latin American population
Jornadas GeoRaizal 2017 - II, Urban geography: urban-rural relations in peacebuilding
Jornadas GeoRaizal 2018 - I, Towards a Territorial Organization for the construction of peace.
Activity
Network of researchers in family agriculture and agroecology
Alliance for Agroecology
Mapping Mapping
Publications and academic posts
Representation of the University in the CLACSO Working Group until 2019: Rural Economy and Good Living.
Collaboration with Jornadas GeoRaizal
Monthly realization of an agroecological market in the University: Support SPG (Certification of trust)
Volunteer Alliance with the Natural Reserves, Agroecological Farms and Ecovillages.
Creation of the Directory of Investigators
Participation as a member of RENAF

The main difficulty that we have been able to solve little by little is the way of positioning the idea of sustainable development in the country. each actor has his version and is not yet well integrated the purpose that promotes United Nations with the SDGs.

With a lot of pedagogy in the territories we have managed to integrate the issue in several communities and organizations in the territories.

The accompaniment to the agroecological markets network has allowed to strengthen processes and improve some practices in the communities on the care of the environment and the associativity in local solidarity economies. In addition, the multiplication of organic gardens and good practices in the management and use of waste has progressively generated actions of responsible consumerism.

A great result until now of the exercise in the Chair is that it has allowed to generate visible efficient visible collective processes and that allow to transform certain realities in the territories And that also produces a change not only in for example the inputs that can be used to improve agricultural or agricultural practices but also a change in the daily practices of communities allowing that it is easier to have a solid and sustainable fabric of the people who participate in the processes that we accompany.

A great challenge we have at this moment is to begin to implement the indicators that at continental and global level are being managed for the fulfillment of the ods, so we have started with the universities to tune the purposes and the actions to align ourselves with the forms of verification and monitoring of sustainable development objectives.