Guatemala gets land advice from UW experts

A group of high-level government officials and policymakers from Guatemala will be among those attending a land access workshop Aug. 21-24 at the university.

The Land Tenure Center will host the “Land Access in the Fight Against Poverty” workshop sessions throughout each day at Union South.

The Guatemalan officials are economists, agronomists, and lawyers holding posts in the government. The workshop will focus on the critical role land plays in a country’s economic development. The goal is to design ways to provide credit to rural people in Guatemala so they can buy farmland and escape conditions of extreme poverty.

The president of Guatemala has charged this group with creating policies for using a newly created land fund in order to help alleviate rural poverty. Extending credit to potential farmers could provide employment for thousands of people in the countryside whose lives have been disrupted by constant civil war.

The land fund is one result of the 1996 Peace Accords, which ended 36 years of civil war in the country. Land Tenure Center experts, along with other UW–Madison professors and researchers, will work with the Guatemalans on developing the skills needed for creating effective ways of using the land fund.

For nearly 40 years, the Land Tenure Center has worked on land matters globally. The center originally focused on Latin America when it was founded in 1962. The center has worked in nearly 20 countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean. The Land Fund was established through a loan from the United States Agency for International Development.