Colombia and Municipalities: Community Maps for Disaster Risk Management – A Commitment to Building Democracy through Participatory Cartography in Col

The Community Maps for Disaster Risk Management in Colombia constitute an institutional strategy designed to formally integrate communities’ territorial knowledge into local public decision-making. Since 2023, the initiative has addressed a specific gap: official risk information did not systematically incorporate community knowledge, limiting the legitimacy and effectiveness of municipal planning.

The project aims to strengthen both technical and alternative capacities within communities to identify and analyze risk scenarios; to build and validate geospatial information through participatory and collaborative cartography; and to incorporate these results into municipal risk management and territorial planning instruments, ensuring real influence on the prioritization of actions and investments. The methodology, defined in the project’s official guide, is structured in five clear and sequential phases.

To date, 4,092 people have actively participated in the process. This reach represents not only coverage but also a concrete expansion of the local democratic base. Communities have shifted from being merely consulted actors to becoming producers of technical information that directly influences public management. The institutional validation of their contributions has strengthened transparency, reduced discretion in prioritizing interventions, and improved the quality of decision-making.

The experience developed in the Community Council of Sivirú-Dotenedó, in the municipality of Bajo Baudó (Chocó), represents an emblematic case of how participatory and collaborative cartography can strengthen territorial democracy in Black and Afro-descendant communities that have historically been excluded from formal planning processes.

In territories marked by histories of exclusion, inequality, or conflict, the methodology has created formal spaces for dialogue between the State and citizens, reducing tensions related to territorial governance and promoting shared responsibility. By institutionalizing participation and transforming it into binding technical input, the Community Maps initiative not only strengthens disaster risk management but also expands local democracy and contributes concretely to territorial peacebuilding by fostering trust, inclusion, and evidence-based, shared decision-making grounded in territorial knowledge.

Learn more: https://sites.google.com/gestiondelriesgo.gov.co/mapascomunitarios/

https://www.oidp.net/docs/repo/doc1825.pdf

https://www.oidp.net/docs/repo/doc1845.pdf 

https://www.oidp.net/docs/repo/doc1846.pdf