Honduras

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Thematic Focus
• Progress on Aid Effectiveness
• Achievements

Overview

Honduras remains one of the poorest countries in Latin America, with poverty concentrated in the rural areas where half the population of 7.6 million resides. Eighteen percent of Hondurans live on less than US$1.25/day. Honduras ranks 121 out of 187 countries on the United Nations Developlement Programme's 2011 human development index.

Despite strong economic growth in 2007 and 2008, the financial crisis of 2009 slowed Honduras' export-led economy, deteriorating its economic indicators and shrinking its migrant remittances. This, coupled with the political upheaval generated by the political crisis, has put recent development progress at risk.

In the short term, it will be difficult for the government to meet the country's needs for health and education services. This is due to the worsening fiscal situation combined with the significant pressure placed on these services by a young and rapidly growing population, 60 percent of which is under the age of 25. At the same time, this young population represents significant human capital potential.

The growing rural population also exerts pressure on the natural resource base. Land degradation, through over-use, deforestation, and poor agricultural practices, in turn makes the country more vulnerable to climate-related and other natural disasters.

Food security is also at risk. Honduran agricultural productivity is currently low, and the country is a net importer of agricultural products, though there is significant room for growth in agricultural production. An increase in food prices of 18 percent in 2008 added about 4 percent to the poverty rate and worsened Honduras' already high malnutrition rates.

Local government continues to be weaker than national structures, although both face limitations in their capacity for policy making and planning. Insecurity related to organised crime is increasing and is a major challenge for the Honduran government.

Thematic Focus

In 2009, as part of Canada's new aid effectiveness agenda, Honduras was selected by CIDA as a country of focus. CIDA's objectives in Honduras are aligned with the Honduran government's national development plan (PDF 3 MB, 177 pages, in Spanish) and its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for 2001-2015 (PDF 1.54 MB, 168 pages), where their stated priorities are education, health, and poverty alleviation.

Canada's expertise has been sought by the Honduran government to address specific needs in health, education, and agriculture. CIDA is working in a consultative manner with the government and with local and Canadian partners on its aid program in Honduras.

Children and youth

CIDA focuses on child and maternal health and basic education. Its approach is to support the Government of Honduras' national health plan to reduce death rates by improving the prevention of illness and disease for children and mothers. CIDA also works to strengthen the national health information system and improve the governance of the health system.

As well, assistance is provided to improve the quality of basic education. CIDA works at the district level, as well as continuing its support at the national level to the joint-donor Education For All initiative led up by UNESCO.

Food security

CIDA focuses on supporting improved rural agricultural productivity, working with producers to move them from subsistence to market-ready production. CIDA provides support in regions experiencing extreme food insecurity. This assistance to vulnerable south-western watersheds helps subsistence farmers increase agricultural productivity and enable year-round harvests, using sustainable natural resource management practices. CIDA also promotes improved nutrition through support to the school meals program, run by the United Nations World Food Programme.

Progress on Aid Effectiveness

Due to its weak capacity and limited resources, the Honduran government has struggled to take the ownership necessary to increase aid effectiveness in Honduras. However, the development of the new national development plan is viewed as a step in the right direction.

Donors work together through a formal coordination system, sharing information, avoiding duplication, and aligning their support with local needs.

Achievements 2010-2011

Children and youth

• Helped recruit and train almost 4,000 community health volunteers, with an 81 percent retention rate, who now provide improved health services
• Helped build more than 460 latrines and nearly 150 water storage containers, improving environmental sanitation conditions and reducing diseases such as diarrhea and parasitism, associated with child mortality and malnutrition
• Helped more than 760 pregnant women and 1,280 children access health centres, and ensured that 95 percent of pregnant women had a birth plan
• Helped train 180 health workers in health care standards and adolescent counselling and 700 teachers in HIV/AIDS prevention and improved access to gender-sensitive sexual and reproductive health services for 30,000 youth at the community level
• Helped build nine water systems, bringing safe and clean water to more than 12,000 people; strong female leadership in community mobilization and buy-in made this effort a success and now more women are decision makers and administrators on water boards

Food security

• Helped more than 1,300 families in the Nacaome and Goascorán watersheds area increase agricultural productivity
• Increased awareness among 14,823 individuals on the importance of managing and protecting water sources
• Helped establish 149 cacao plots covering 142.2 hectares of land and rehabilitated 42 farms, now used by 191 producers to cultivate cacao and timber
• Provided school meals to 149,800 children — half of them girls — 5-18 years of age in more than 2,700 schools through support to the World Food Programme

Achievements 2009-2010

Food security

• Initiated three projects aimed at increasing food security and income of small-scale producers by improving rural agricultural productivity and diversity, and by promoting sustainable resource- and land-management practices

Children and youth

• Helped enable access to HIV/AIDS prevention and early pregnancy services for 12,850 adolescents
• Helped deliver counselling, health promotion services, and hygiene awareness to 28,000 beneficiaries
• Helped 565 beneficiaries gain access to safe drinking water and supported the construction of 241 latrines
• Contributed to the provision of daily school meals and de-worming treatments to 110,017 children (including 56,109 girls) from 5 to 18 years of age

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