Floro Tunubala, the first indigenous person ever to be a Governor in Colombia, completed his term in the department of Cauca in December, 2003. As governor, he developed proposals for the manual eradication of coca and, working with six other governors in southern Colombia whose departments were also targeted for aerial fumigation in the US-funded Plan Colombia, he worked to foster alternative social and economic development projects.

Ludivia Giraldo Diaz, a social psychologist from Cali, has used psychosocial interventions and educational processes across Colombia with groups of women and children, campesinos, Afro-Colombians, and other communities of the displaced. From 1993 to 2000 she worked with MINGA, the Association for Alternative Social Development, a Bogota-based human rights organization with a strong regional presence.