Safeguarding Colombia's elections in the information environment

The Protecting Electoral Processes in the Information Environment project is dedicated to addressing this challenge by focusing on the impact of such damaging information on electoral integrity.

In this context, a key event took place in Bogotá, Colombia, on 26–27 November 2024: the first of a three-workshop series organized as part of the project. This inaugural workshop in Colombia brought together over 25 participants, including representatives from the country’s leading electoral management bodies—the Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil and the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE)—as well as civil society organizations, journalists, academics, and election practitioners. The purpose of the workshop was to map the information environment in Colombia, identify harmful narratives, and explore how they contribute to the erosion of trust in the country’s electoral processes.

A key highlight of the event was the exchange between the Colombian participants and the core working group members from Paraguay, a country that has already made significant progress within the project. Paraguay’s early involvement in the project helped Colombian participants better understand the goals of the initiative and what it could ultimately lead to. Through this exchange, Paraguay shared its experiences in dealing with harmful information and provided valuable insights on how to strengthen electoral processes in the face of these challenges.  

The Bogotá event marks the first of three events in the Protecting Electoral Processes in the Information Environment series. Following the mapping workshop, the next two workshops – to be held in 2025 - will focus on creating a roadmap to protect electoral processes from harmful information, followed by concrete steps to implement the strategies outlined in the roadmap.

The mapping event provided a crucial foundation for the ongoing project, fostering collaboration as well as learning between electoral practitioners at the local, regional, and global levels. The insights gained will shape the development of Colombia’s strategies for safeguarding electoral trust and will contribute to the broader goal of strengthening democratic processes across the project countries.