This project was focused on the training of officials of the municipality of Quetzaltenango in the creation, design and management of cooperation projects with emphasis on any of the following areas of specialization: Entrepreneurship, Sustainable Tourism, Health and Nutrition, priority areas for the municipality and the region. The intention was that the Guatemalan administration managed to have experts able to create concrete, viable and sustainable projects, in priority themes and areas and specific to the regional development and of the people.
21 officials from the municipality and entities of the city were trained.
The participants generated cross-level projects that integrate all municipal and regional interests and at the vertical level in one of the intensification areas. The main feature of the projects is that they must consider as part of their design and creation a direct beneficiary group. The projects were:
- Breaking the cycle of malnutrition in Totonicapán, Guatemala Central America (Sustainable Tourism Project).
- Control and regulation project of polluting waste discharged to the system of drains from the industrial activity of the urban area of the municipality of Quetzaltenango (Health and Nutrition Project).
- Construction of tourist paths in the municipality of Quetzaltenango (Entrepreneurship).
At the educational level it was considered the participation of the participants in the project “Training of technicians and municipal managers for the regional development of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, 2006 - 2007)” as monitors for performing a first process of transfer of knowledge and good practices among officials.
In the short term the project allowed the consolidation of an important group of technicians and municipal managers trained in various topics of municipal management and project management and with projects whose implementation is guaranteed by bringing in groups in the city and its surroundings. This human group specialized in Sustainable Tourism, Health and Nutrition, and Entrepreneurship.
In this way, FUNIBER trains professionals with a vision capable of generating integrated initiatives and aligned with national and regional development policies of the country in strategic and concrete areas of specialization.
FUNIBER contributed to the smooth implementation of the project at the local level in Quetzaltenango (Guatemala) with:
(i) knowledge, expertise, technology and social capital in the creation, design, management, implementation and closure of the project;
(ii) experience in online learning and instructional adaptation to the country on the basis of the experience in Latin America and in the own country;
(iii) virtual spaces and good practices for online studies, cooperative work and collaborative work;
(iv) support for the design of development projects and regional economic growth;
(v) experience in practice communities for building a network of officials who transfer experience and concrete projects to the society in terms of participation and benefit for the citizen; and
(vi) provision of support specialists to complement and facilitate the creation work of the projects.
The project was carried out with grant from the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD, Catalonia, Spain).