Inaugurated as mayor of Medellín at the beginning of 2004, Sergio Fajardo inherited a city roiled by decades of violence and corruption. During his four years in office, the charismatic former university professor turned Medellín around. He broke up clientelistic political networks, raised tax receipts, improved public services, introduced transparency fairs, established civic pacts, and restored citizens’ sense of hope. Fajardo left office at the end of 2007 with an unprecedented approval rating of nearly 90%. Though Medellín still faced significant challenges, the city was later identified as an exemplary case of good public administration by cities across Latin America and the Inter-American Development Bank. By 2010, Fajardo had been named the vice-presidential running mate of former Bogotá mayor Antanas Mockus in that year’s presidential elections. 

In May 2004, Colombia’s Office of the Presidency established a national-level agency, the Centro de Coordinación de Acción Integral, to manage the reintroduction of state institutions into areas that had been retaken from leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug traffickers. The agency set up a central Bogotá office from which it coordinated work in so-called consolidation zones around the country. In many of these areas, the government had either been absent for decades or never present. In the words of Andres Peñate, former vice minister of defense and an architect of the initiative, “Although we were all Colombians, it was almost like conquering a different country.” Despite setbacks, by late 2009 the agency had received broad-based domestic and international endorsement.

Matthew Devlin and Sebastian Chaskel drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Colombia during October and November 2009. 

Associated Interview(s):  Diego Molano

Beginning in the late 1980s, Rio de Janeiro suffered increasing urban violence as the drug trade moved south from the Caribbean.  The favelas, shantytowns and slums on the hillsides surrounding Brazil's second-largest city, saw a rise in both inter-gang violence and clashes between police and drug traffickers.  Innocent bystanders often died in the crossfire.  In 2007, working with the support of the governor, the state's secretary for public security, José Mariano Beltrame, and his colleagues tried a new approach.  Instead of repeated military-style interventions to oust the traffickers, Beltrame created the Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora  (UPP, or Peace Police Unit), to provide a continuous police presence and help extend the reach of the government into contested areas.  Beltrame's team rolled out the program on a pilot basis and identified communities where early success would boost the image of the government in the eyes of Rio's population.  This case study outlines the development of the new approach, the problems encountered in implementation, and some of the results from the pilot program's opening months. 

Richard Bennet drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in August and September 2010. Case published December 2010.

Associated Interview(s):  Silvia Ramos, Luiz Eduardo Soares