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| ©A portrait of Vice President Francia Márquez at the Colombian Permanent Mission to the United Nations. | Sarah Blesener for Politico |
The Colombian Vice-President, Francia Márquez, has arrived in South Africa for an intensive three-day visit and will visit Kenya and Ethiopia afterwards. She has advocated for a shift in international relations, emphasising building bridges with African countries.
Francia Márquez, an environmental activist from the mountainous department of Cauca in southwestern Colombia, has become the country’s first Black vice president on Sunday as the running mate to Gustavo Petro.
The potential for bilateral cooperation between the two countries is largely untapped, and a visit at this level creates the environment for creating a new South-South agenda. Three areas that point to how a new phase of South-South cooperation could benefit both countries are cultural exchange, peace and reconciliation, and existing efforts to facilitate cultural exchange. This month, MUICA, an African film festival, tours five Colombian cities, punctuating a new agenda showcasing the dynamic African film industry.
The visit to South Africa includes official government meetings and a gathering with business leaders to explore commercial opportunities. Some exciting links are already in place, such as Colombian coffee and South African rooibos tea being favoured in both countries. New conversations about how some blockages could be addressed are critical to opening up these markets.
Tourism in both countries can become a pillar for the relationship to deepen, for exchange and for new destinations to be promoted. The parallels of the socioeconomic and political realities create a foundation for business at the city level.
Experiments have taken place, such as the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system and Cape Town’s Open Streewere inspired by Bogota’s Ciclovia. This visit is the first step in building common ground and acknowledging the mutual benefit of building a relationship.
In 2022, New York Times reported that the Petro-Márquez ticket won Sunday’s runoff election, according to preliminary results. Ms Márquez is significant because she is Black in a nation where Afro-Colombians are regularly subject to racism and must contend with structural barriers. She comes from poverty in a country where economic class often defines a person’s place in society.
Despite economic gains in recent decades, Colombia remains starkly unequal, with Black, Indigenous and rural communities falling the farthest behind. She grew up sleeping on a dirt floor in a region battered by violence related to the country’s long internal conflict.
Additionally, Francia Márquez is a Colombian politician running for president. She is a champion of change and for more diverse representation, but some critics have called her divisive. She has never held political office, and her opponents have targeted her with racist tropes. On the campaign trail, Ms Márquez's persistent, frank and biting analysis of the social disparities in Colombia cracked open a discussion about race and class in a manner rarely heard in the country's most public and influential political circles. Santiago Arboleda, a professor of Afro-Andean history at Simón Bolivar Andean University, believes these themes are now on the front page.
