A community-governance strategy within Cali’s Plan Jarillón that trains people living beside the Cauca River dike to look after it, grow community gardens on recovered stretches and raise awareness among their neighbours. It runs alongside the engineering works and the resettlement of families who lived on the dike.
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Guardianes del Jarillón: Residents as Caretakers of Cali’s Cauca River Flood Dike
General Information
ISIG
A city programme in Cali, Colombia, that trains residents living beside the Cauca River flood dike to look after it and raise awareness among their neighbours. Called Guardianes del Jarillón, it is the community-governance line of the Plan Jarillón, the programme that is reinforcing the 26.1 km dike and resettling the 8,777 households that lived on it after the 2010–2011 floods. By December 2022 it had trained 280 guardians, mainly from six communes in eastern Cali, in urban agroecology, landscaping, governance, citizen participation and risk management, and guardians now help run six community gardens on recovered stretches. The municipality works with the regional environment authority (CVC) and the city’s environment department (Dagma), and a US$800,000 USAID and UNDP project funded a linked gardening programme.
The Cauca River runs along the eastern edge of Cali. The jarillón, the local word for the earth dike that protects the city, was built by the CVC between 1958 and the early 1960s and was originally 17 km long and 1.7 m high. Over decades it was weakened by settlements, illegal pipes, dumping and unstable soil, and the 2010–2011 La Niña rains brought the river close to the top of the dike. The Plan Jarillón was created in response. It is financed mainly by the national Adaptation Fund, with the CVC, the municipality and the city utility Emcali, under an agreement signed in 2015, and the city says reinforcement works began in 2016.
The city describes the possible consequences of a breach as flooding in ten communes and the rural district of Navarro, damage to water and wastewater treatment plants and loss of drinking water for about 80 percent of the city. Its 2018 resilience strategy put the damage at about US$11.4 billion and the number of people affected at about 900,000. The plan’s main parts are reinforcing the dike, resettling the households living on it, improving drainage and key infrastructure, and a social and environmental component. Its listed lines of action are resettlement, reinforcement, Guardianes del Jarillón, productive rural housing and a linear park. In March 2018 the city reported 3,390 of the 8,777 households resettled and 15.9 of the 26.1 km free of settlements, and its social programme then aimed to strengthen families’ capacities and leadership for participation and coexistence. The 2018 strategy does not mention the Guardianes, whose first dated description in the sources reviewed is from December 2022. By September 2025 the city reported 97 percent of the reinforcement done, 25.3 of 26.1 km. Press reports put resettlement at about 5,600 of the 8,777 households by early 2026, with an additional group of households having moved back onto cleared land.
Hazard Type
Geographical Scope - Nuts
Geographical Scope
Population Size
Population Density
Needs Addressed
After the dike was reinforced, the main risk to the investment was that people would damage it or settle on it again. Three linked problems stand out:
- Occupation and reoccupation. 8,777 households lived on the dike and its drainage lagoons, and press reports describe renewed occupation of cleared sections.
- Dumping and building on the structure. A guardian says that rubble and rubbish, because of their weight, can damage the dike. The city’s stated aim includes preventing new occupation.
- Weak ownership. Hostility and conflict around resettlement were reported, including communities blocking access to works in 2021, and the city wanted the dike to become a shared space.
The sources do not name groups targeted by the strategy. Guardians also train schools to teach children about the importance of the dike, which is the only group named as an audience.
The Plan Jarillón is run by the Municipality of Cali, with the CVC, Emcali and the national Adaptation Fund under a joint agreement. Within the Plan, a governance team runs the Guardianes strategy and works with Dagma, the CVC and other institutions on environmental management. A USAID and UNDP project, implemented with the Fundación Escuela Taller de Cali, supported a linked gardening programme. Residents take part as guardians and gardeners. As such, roles are shared among local, regional and national bodies, international agencies and community members.
A city communication says that people living close to the dike become the first responders if the river rises, and the guardians are trained in risk management. No public information was found on evacuation plans, drills, alert protocols or the role of guardians during a river rise in the sources reviewed, so the rating relies on the training and the existing flood-risk programme.
The Plan has reinforced 25.3 of 26.1 km of the dike, installed bank protection and erosion control in the Canal Interceptor Sur, and is improving the Paso del Comercio pumping station, the drainage system (including the Pondaje lagoon) and the water and wastewater treatment plants. Press reports note that part of the dike was still unfinished and that thousands of households remained in non-mitigable risk zones.
To bring neighbours into the protection of the dike and the use of the cleared land, and to build a working relationship between the institutions and the communities beside the dike.
The strategy visits communities to explain its activities and invites them to talks and workshops, such as identifying the plants and animals of the river ecosystem. Guardians pass on what they learn in their neighbourhoods and in schools, and the six community gardens share information and citizen reports through WhatsApp groups.
Guardians act as spokespeople in their families and neighbourhoods and carry out the gardening and awareness work. Decisions on the engineering works, resettlement and land use are taken by the institutions.
The training for guardians covered urban agroecology, landscaping, entrepreneurship, how the institutions work, ways for citizens to take part, governance models and risk management. A linked programme trained 300 people in urban agroecology, gardening, work at heights and pool maintenance to improve their chances of finding work.
Vulnerable Groups
Governance
Emergency Preparedness
Infrastructure Readiness
Engagement Level
Empowerment Level
Implementation
The strategy treats the dike as a space that links the river’s environmental corridors with flood-risk reduction, not only as a wall. It combines community gardens on recovered stretches, guardians as local voices, training that includes governance and entrepreneurship, and WhatsApp networks between gardens. The city holds up the Petecuy neighbourhood as a model of good use of the dike and good relations between institutions and neighbours.
Spanish
The Plan Jarillón de Cali, run by the Municipality of Santiago de Cali, with the CVC, Emcali and the national Adaptation Fund. The strategy is run by the Plan’s governance team and works with Dagma, the CVC and the Fundación Escuela Taller de Cali on the gardening programme, with USAID and UNDP as funders of that programme.
The municipality and its partners have run a large flood-protection programme since 2015, with 97 percent of the reinforcement reported done and over 5,600 households resettled.
The Municipality of Cali and its Plan Jarillón team; the CVC; Dagma; Emcali; the Adaptation Fund; USAID and UNDP; the Fundación Escuela Taller de Cali; 280 guardians (by December 2022) and gardeners, mainly from communes 6, 7, 13, 14, 17 and 21; community gardens such as Guerreros del Jarillón in Petecuy II; and schools in the sector.
- Recover stretches of the dike through resettlement and reinforcement.
- Inform nearby communities about the Plan’s activities and invite them to talks and workshops.
- Train residents as guardians in risk management, participation, governance, landscaping, urban agroecology and entrepreneurship.
- Set up community gardens on recovered stretches and in the Canal Interceptor Sur, run by neighbours.
- Have guardians spread knowledge in neighbourhoods and schools and share information and reports through WhatsApp groups.
- Coordinate with Dagma, the CVC and other institutions, and hold events that consolidate the experience.
Human: a municipal governance team, trainers, guardians and gardeners, school and institutional partners.
Financial: the Plan Jarillón is financed under a standing agreement, with the national Adaptation Fund providing about two thirds of the budget of some COP 992 billion and the CVC, the municipality and Emcali the rest, according to press reports. USAID and UNDP contributed US$800,000 to the linked gardening programme.
The strategy’s own budget is not published.
The Plan Jarillón has run since 2015, with reinforcement from 2016. The city held an event in December 2022 to close its governance strategy, with 280 guardians and 300 gardeners present, and described the strategy again as active in September 2025. While no public information on the strategy’s phases, start date or monitoring was found, the Plan has defined lines of action.
Experience of the Implementing Organisation in DRM
Resources Required
Timeframe & Phases
Participation Results
The city’s position is that sustaining the works depends on governance, meaning that the people next to the dike come to value and protect it. Residents trained as guardians become voices in their families and neighbourhoods, and gardens give recovered land a visible use. A guardian reports that talking to neighbours and schools about not dumping rubble is a main task, and the city points to Petecuy as an example of good relations between institutions and residents. Linking training to livelihoods, as the gardening programme did, was seen as a way to reactivate family income after the pandemic.
No public information on challenges specific to the Guardianes strategy was found in the sources reviewed. Based on the available information, it can be inferred that it faces the problems reported for the Plan: reoccupation of cleared land, dumping, tension with resettled and evicted families, and delays. Press reports describe at least 1,000 households moving back onto cleared land in the Pondaje and Charco Azul areas, contracts suspended in 2021 because communities blocked access, and a community garden leader reporting death threats from people who dump rubble. The city’s response includes the gardens, which are meant to occupy recovered land and involve the community in preventing new settlement, vigilance and control, and an office for the wellbeing of resettled families.
The Plan links specific risks to specific measures: seepage and erosion of the dike (static reinforcement and bank protection), unstable soil nearby (dynamic reinforcement), flooding from poor drainage (improvements to the Pondaje lagoon and eastern drainage), reoccupation and dumping (resettlement, vigilance and the guardians’ awareness and gardens).
Risk & Mitigation Plan
Scalability and Sustainability
Continuation depends on the municipality’s commitment to preserving the reinforced dike, its governance team, partnerships with Dagma and the CVC, and the neighbours who run the gardens. The city states that governance is the key to making the works last, but it gives no budget or institutional arrangement for the guardians after the Plan’s engineering works finish.
The idea of pairing a flood defence with community stewardship and productive use of recovered land could suit other cities with informal settlements on levees or flood-control structures. What scales is the combination of resettlement, recovered land, community gardens and local guardians trained in risk and governance. What must be adapted is the legal and land situation, the partners, the funding, who holds responsibility for the land, and how the guardians relate to the authorities. The approach needs a municipal team for community work, available land and funding for gardens and training. It was developed alongside a very large national investment, and the sources do not show whether a smaller scheme would work.
The technology is limited to WhatsApp groups that link the community gardens for sharing agroecology information, organising activities and reporting concerns. The Plan’s engineering works are advanced, but they are not part of the Guardianes strategy.
The strategy relies on the Plan’s project funding and on international cooperation for the gardens, and no long-term funding arrangement for the guardians was found. Stable local sustainability is the alternative if the municipality is assumed to continue the work after the Plan ends.
The Plan Jarillón as a whole has a budget of about COP 992 billion since 2015, according to press reports, and the city’s 2018 resilience strategy gave an investment of about US$182 million financed by the national government. USAID and UNDP contributed US$800,000 to the linked gardening programme, which also trained 300 people.
No public information on ongoing costs was found. It can be inferred that they include the governance team’s time, training, support for the gardens, vigilance and control, and maintenance of the dike.
Community stewardship has not so far been enough to prevent reoccupation in the areas reported, and the guardians’ role depends on continued institutional support and funding. A guardian leader quoted in 2026 said the six gardens directly benefit only about ten families, against 280 guardians reported in 2022, which suggests that the active core may be much smaller than the trained group. The city closed the original governance strategy in December 2022 and later described it as active again, and the sources do not explain the change. International cooperation funded the gardening programme, and no public information on funding for the guardians after that was found.