The United Nations Security Council on Friday unanimously renewed the mandate of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia for another year, until 31 October 2027, keeping international monitors in place for the tenth-anniversary year of the country's 2016 peace agreement.
Source: GOV.UK — UK statement at the UN Security Council
Denmark, in its explanation of vote, confirmed the renewal was unanimous and thanked the United Kingdom, the resolution's penholder, for securing a timely adoption before the mission's mandate expired on 31 October. Denmark said the reduced mandate should not be read as the UN stepping back, and called the vote a reaffirmation of the Council's confidence in Colombia's peace process.
Source: Danish Mission to the UN — Explanation of Vote, 30.10.2026
Under the renewed mandate, the mission's verification work is focused on security guarantees, demobilisation and the reintegration of former combatants. Responsibility for rural reform — including formalised land ownership, infrastructure and economic opportunities for rural communities — will now transfer to Colombia's own domestic institutions, a shift the UK welcomed after Foreign Minister Bula set out the government's commitments to the Council on 12 October.
Ten years after the peace deal
Britain's ambassador Sarah MacIntosh told the Council that more than 11,000 former combatants remain demobilised and committed to the agreement, but warned that violence and evolving conflict dynamics still threaten communities, with illicit economies fuelling the violence. Protecting the gains of the agreement and addressing today's security challenges are not competing objectives, she said — they are mutually reinforcing.
The mission, headed by Special Representative Miroslav Jenča, verifies implementation of the 2016 Final Agreement between the Colombian government and the former FARC-EP guerrillas. The Secretary-General's latest 90-day report on the mission (S/2026/759), covering developments since 27 June, was circulated to Council members on 25 September.
Colombia's 2016 agreement ended a conflict of more than five decades. The Council's unanimous vote keeps a UN verification presence on the ground for the agreement's tenth year, even as the mission's narrower mandate hands more responsibility — starting with rural reform — to Colombian institutions themselves.