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Sergio Jaramillo Caro

Former High Commissioner for Peace (2012-2016)

Senior Advisor, European Institute of Peace (EIP)

Colombia

Sergio Jaramillo Caro is a Colombian diplomat, philosopher, and politician. He currently serves as Senior Advisor at the European Institute of Peace (EIP). He previously served as High Commissioner for Peace from 2012 to 2016 and National Security Advisor from 2010 to 2012 to the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos. In these roles, he led the secret negotiations with the FARC guerrillas, culminating in the General Agreement of 2012, and then co-led the public negotiations that resulted in the Final Agreement in November 2016. As Peace Commissioner, he oversaw the disarmament of the FARC in 2017 and was subsequently appointed Ambassador to the EU and Belgium from 2017 to 2018. 

Caro also served as Vice Minister of Defense for Policy and International Affairs from 2006 to 2009 and as Executive Director of the Ideas for Peace Foundation in Bogotá from 2004 to 2006. From 2000 to 2003, earlier in his career, he advised the ministers of foreign affairs and defense, including a role as political counselor at the Colombian embassy in Paris from 2001 to 2002 and advisor for political and strategic affairs at the Ministry of Defense from 2002 to 2003, where he helped draft the Democratic Security policy. 

An accomplished scholar, Caro studied philosophy and Greek at the University of Toronto, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and University of Heidelberg. He holds an M.Phil. in philosophy from Cambridge University and was a doctoral candidate in Greek at the University of Heidelberg. 

He previously shared his strategy behind the historic Colombian peace accord during The Reverend Dr. Richard L. Pearson Inaugural Lecture at the University of Chicago in 2017, as well as the Roots of Conflict podcast hosted by the Pearson Institute in 2020. 

 

Baidoa, Somalia

Makeshift, temporary shelter made of plastic and clothing at a refugee center in Baidoa, Somalia.