In July 2003, the government of President Álvaro Uribe took the unprecedented step of opening formal peace talks with the AUC. Although close to 900 paramilitary fighters demobilized last year, issues such as paramilitary involvement in drug trafficking and accountability for human rights abuses have raised controversy in Colombia and abroad. The Wilson Center conference aims to explore key issues in the Government-AUC peace talks, the prospects for an eventual negotiated settlement, and the key challenges ahead. Video of both the Director's Forum and the Panel discussion is available here. Summaries of both the Director's Forum and the Panel discussion are available in the Summary section.

During 2003, both the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program published major studies of economic and social conditions in Colombia and the causes and consequences of conflict, including policy recommendations for sustainable and equitable growth and development as well as reform. The World Bank's 900-plus page study, Colombia: The Economic Foundation of Peace, and the United Nations Development Program's human development report, El conflicto: callejón con salida, offer comprehensive diagnoses of the relationship between violence and civil conflict, detailing, among other issues, the human costs of the war, the crisis of the rural sector, and offering recommendations for macroeconomic and social policy reform.