Earlier this month, we joined experts from around the region and world at the Central American Donors Forum in Antigua, Guatemala, to discuss the most pressing issues facing Central America. This year’s theme was “transformational partnerships,” a timely and fitting focus.
Guatemala was added to USAID’s Democracy Delivers Initiative in September at an event during the United Nations General Assembly High-level Week. This initiative supports democratic “bright spots” so they can implement and expand their reform agendas and deliver on citizen priorities. The current Government of Guatemala, led by President Bernardo Arévalo, has shown a commitment to continuing its momentum of democratic gains.
The most effective way to seize this moment is precisely through transformational partnerships. Those partnerships are not limited to just Guatemala. Particularly in a region with so many shared challenges and priorities, it was clear during the conference that many solutions involve coming together across borders.
One of the recurring topics during the conference was the role of Indigenous communities in defending democracy. Indigenous groups in Guatemala were instrumental in ensuring a peaceful transition of power following the 2023 elections.
In her remarks, Feliciana Herrera, an Indigenous authority from the Ixil community in Nebaj, highlighted that there is a new democratic opportunity with the current government. Many echoed this sentiment, from U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary Eric Jacobstein to Congresswoman Norma Torres.
It is also important to note that the role of Indigenous peoples in upholding democratic principles goes beyond Guatemala — we also heard from Honduran youth activists and Nicaraguan grassroots groups about the role of Indigenous communities in their countries.
At Creative, we are particularly proud of our work with Indigenous communities in Guatemala, where indigenous authorities are key partners in conflict resolution and rebuilding social cohesion. As part of a comprehensive approach to preventing and addressing violence against women and girls in predominantly Indigenous communities, we worked through trusted local partners to provide culturally relevant attention using traditional Mayan healing practices.
Another area of shared concern that came up in various sessions was the need to address endemic corruption in the region.
Combating corruption was a key campaign issue for President Arévalo and is a high priority for Guatemalan citizens. The Partnership for Central America and Transparency International launched an Anti-Corruption and Transparency Initiative for Central America. The initiative brings together the private sector and civil society from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to focus on collective action in addressing corruption. The need for coordination between the northern Central American countries on corruption issues was also highlighted during a session on Civil Society and Independence from the State in Democratic Processes.
At Creative, we have seen results through multi-stakeholder collaboration, working with civil society, government and the private sector to address corruption as well as peacebuilding, violence prevention, service delivery challenges and other reforms. In Honduras, Creative supported conversations about how transparency, accountability and activism strengthen collaboration and trust within the community.
While there is much to be hopeful about, it is also important to recognize that judges, journalists and civil society leaders from across the region remain in exile or face persecution. Many keynote speakers and panelists recognized the need to work together to protect human rights advocates and defenders.
As President Arévalo said during the conference’s opening remarks, “You cannot have democracy without social justice.”
Closing civic space is a threat to democracy. So, when a democratic opening presents itself, as it currently is in Guatemala, it is critical to seize the moment and support those working daily to strengthen democracy in the region.
Sara Barker is a Senior Technical Advisor, and Cecilia Basso is Creative’s Director of Business Development.
The Guatemala Peacebuilding Project, known as Proyecto Tejiendo Paz, was named one of 10 finalists in the 2024 USAID Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) Case Competition, a global contest that honors innovative practices in programming and outcomes from the agency’s staff and implementing partners.
Tejiendo Paz’s case, titled “Power to the People: Empowering Communities to Build Social Cohesion in Guatemala’s Western Highlands,” exemplifies the core principles of CLA by integrating decision-making approaches directly into the project’s main strategy to address local conflicts and promote community development.
The USAID-funded Tejiendo Paz, implemented by Creative, aims to reduce social conflict and violence and strengthen social cohesion, with a specific focus on Guatemala’s Western Highlands. The project has demonstrated exemplary integration of CLA decision-making approaches into its overall strategy.
This year marks the 10th annual CLA Case Competition, which received a record 176 submissions, with 73 percent from first-time participants.
In 2012, USAID’s Bureau for Planning, Learning, and Resource Management introduced CLA as the agency’s approach to organizational learning and adaptive management. CLA aims to address common challenges in international development, such as lack of coordination among donors and implementers, donor-driven development, underutilized data, outdated practices, irrelevance to local contexts and rigid adherence to plans despite changing circumstances.
Through integrating CLA into the program cycle, development practitioners enhance their effectiveness through strategic collaboration, informed learning and adaptive decision-making within supportive organizational environments.
One of the key ways Tejiendo Paz applied CLA was through its relationships and decision-making approaches, ensuring that the team maintained strong relationships with communities and key allies, facilitating continuous and effective local implementation.
For instance, in the municipality of Cunén, Quiché, Tejiendo Paz identified specific conflicts related to youth, gender, natural resources, and governance. By collaborating with local leaders and community members from the outset, the project was able to prioritize these issues and direct actions toward addressing them. This collaboration was crucial in identifying key allies and actors who could enhance and facilitate the strategy at the local level, optimizing project resources and ensuring that interventions were relevant to community needs.
Learning was another critical component of Tejiendo Paz’s success. The project established mechanisms for continuous feedback, which empowered staff at all levels to contribute to decision-making, especially within the implementation team. By systematically documenting and sharing best practices and lessons learned, Tejiendo Paz was able to refine its approaches to conflict resolution and community engagement. This adaptive management approach ensured that activities responded to the evolving local context, making necessary adjustments to improve outcomes.
Several enabling conditions created by Tejiendo Paz also played a significant role in its effective application of CLA. By fostering an organizational culture that prioritized relationships and networks, the project was able to drive strategic local empowerment. This culture encouraged the identification and engagement of key stakeholders, ensuring inclusivity and local ownership of the project.
Overall, Tejiendo Paz’s implementation of context-appropriate CLA approaches — collaborating with the right partners, learning from continuous feedback, and adapting strategies based on evidence and local context — demonstrates how development projects can address complex challenges and achieve sustainable impact.
Read more about the 2024 CLA Case Competition here.
Yesenia Mejia Palacios, a mother of three, was born and raised in this mountainous community in the Western Highlands. She is a community leader and is currently the Vice President of her Community Development Council, known as a COCODE (the acronym in Spanish), one of more than 17,000 groups in the country.
Elected every two years, Mejia Palacios took on the COCODE role because she wants to “work in harmony, with joy, with colleagues, ensuring the improvement of the community and above all so that processes are transparent.”
“The COCODE is the highest authority within the community, to which citizens turn in case of an emergency or with any issues. It is the entity in charge of ensuring the community’s well-being through soliciting, managing and executing development projects,” explains Mejia Palacios.
While COCODE leaders are eager to serve their neighbors, they frequently receive no training on their legal functions, rights and obligations, which limits their ability to solicit and manage community projects through the municipality, leading to frustration among residents.
To improve the COCODE’s abilities to meet residents’ expectations, USAID’s Tejiendo Paz partnered with the Regional Council for Urban and Rural Development (COREDUR for the acronym in Spanish) to conduct 125 training activities for 1,426 COCODE and community leaders like Mejia Palacios. Tejiendo Paz, an eight-year initiative that focuses on preventing social conflict and violence, as well as improving social cohesion and peacebuilding, has worked with 133 communities in Guatemala’s Western Highlands.
The training provided COCODE members with an understanding of their roles and responsibilities, with a focus on effective project management. Each community received training manuals that will serve as a valuable resource in the future when COCODE leaders rotate.
Victor Hugo Godoy, who leads the Secretariat of Executive Coordination of the Presidency — the government’s entity responsible for coordinating the development council system and promoting citizen participation — says one of the administration’s goals is for investments to have a greater impact.
“I believe we have helped, but not enough,” Godoy says. “In this regard, the President wants everything to be more cohesive, not as fragmented as it is now, from the community level through departmental governments. This will allow for a more comprehensive vision of development at the departmental level rather than just the community level. It’s about moving to the next step. That is the challenge.”
Mejia Palacios says the training by Tejiendo Paz taught them to identify a problem, analyze the causes and prioritize solutions. She shared that one of the things she is most proud of achieving through the COCODE, with support from Tejiendo Paz, is addressing a conflict related to access to water.
“We are very happy that we now have our community regulations for the water project. Now, each user, each community member, will have a title to a water right, but also a regulation for the conservation of the water,” says Mejia Palacios.
During the training, the Tejiendo Paz team identified a need to provide basic equipment to COCODEs so that they could perform their functions. The COCODE meetings and assemblies are often conducted in community centers, schools or even people’s homes with limited supplies.
In coordination with the Secretariat of Executive Coordination of the Presidency, the Tejiendo Paz provided the COCODEs with a loudspeaker to make announcements, audio equipment for large assemblies, tables, chairs and files for the storage of information.
Mejia Palacios says, “Today we have our own microphones, with our own tables to take the minutes, because we had to ask for tables at the school or rent tables, but now we can say with our own equipment, little by little things are getting done.”
Miguel Balán, Social Conflict Manager with Tejiendo Paz, has seen a change in how communities work together to address conflict and development challenges.
“Communities are now advocating within municipalities and government institutions to respond to their needs and priorities,” he says. “By engaging in dialogue and negotiation, communities are better prepared to manage projects within the development council system that respond to the needs of all community members,” added Miguel.
Jose López, the former Treasurer of the COCODE in El Rancho, Chiantla, explains that they are now managing community projects directly with the Municipality Development Council, called COMUDE.
“There are COMUDE meetings, where participants from each community … go to that meeting every month, where they listen to our needs at the level of each community … They analyze [the requests], and then they confirm to the president of the COCODE if it is approved,” he says.
Utilizing the skills that they gained through training, El Rancho’s COCODE has solicited and received funding through the development council system to construct a community meeting hall and health clinic.
“It is something very important for the community because, at the moment, someone’s house is being used as a health clinic. So right now, the need is to have our own health clinic… to be able to have more support through a doctor and supplies,” explains López.
Godoy, Secretary of Executive Coordination of the Presidency, explains that “the council system is the main means of participation of the Maya, Garifuna and mestizo population in development planning and public policies.”
He says the current priority is the “revival of civic participation… transferring power to the people. How can we help people trust again in the institutions and in the state that should be at their service?”
Reviving civic participation and rebuilding trust includes empowering people like Mejia Palacios and López, who are from rural communities far from the country’s capital, in defining their governance and development priorities and providing them with the tools to implement the projects that benefit their communities.
And, as Mejia Palacios shares, it is also about involving young people.
“They are the present, but they are also the future of the community,” she says. “Those who will come after within the COCODE, well, they will be the children, they will be the young people.”
Rosa Isabel Melgar, age 19, had an opportunity to leave her home in Puerto Cortés, Honduras, a Caribbean community with a long tradition of irregular migration to other countries. Years earlier, her mother made the journey north, and Melgar’s sister later followed.
Melgar remained in the Barrio Medina community of Puerto Cortés and is stepping up for her neighborhood.
“People leave their neighborhoods for various reasons, either involuntarily or voluntarily, because they say they want a better future,” Melgar says. “But they can build our future here.”
Youth around the world face significant challenges related to unemployment, social fragmentation, lack of political and community engagement, and limited economic opportunities. These issues are interconnected, with financial instability exacerbating social tensions and undermining community cohesion. However, holistic youth programming that centers youth as co-designers and partners offers a powerful solution by addressing these challenges.
By building platforms that create economic opportunities, fostering social cohesion and nurturing leadership skills, these programs empower young people to become catalysts for positive change in their communities.
Positive Youth Development is an approach to supporting young people in reaching their full potential by engaging them directly, connecting them with supportive adults and creating opportunities for them to build community. It aims to grow youth’s skills and belief in themselves while creating a safe, enabling environment where they can participate actively in the world around them.
Melgar has been developing her leadership skills through the 1,500-strong youth program called Agentes de Cambio (Agents of Change), an initiative supported by USAID’s Sembrando Esperanza (Planting Hope) that works with a consortium of organizations in 25 target municipalities. Agentes de Cambio is one of several community-focused activities the program supports to foster rootedness by placing youth at the center of identifying, developing and carrying out locally conceived and led activities.
“Participating in Sembrando Esperanza’s activities has been a turning point in my life. Through this activity, I discovered my leadership skills and the ability to positiviely influence my surroundings.”
To harness young people’s potential, the program invests in engaging diverse youth, building leadership skills, creating networks of like-minded people and developing community projects.
“Once we acquire skills, we bring them to our families to create more positive relationships at home,” explains Melgar, one of the 150 Agentes de Cambio in the coastal city of Puerto Cortes.
During co-creation sessions, youth collaborate with the larger community and civil society organizations to identify challenges—such as lack of economic opportunities or gang violence—and brainstorm innovative solutions to address them.
“Participating in Sembrando Esperanza’s activities has been a turning point in my life,” Melgar explains. “Through this activity, I discovered my leadership skills and the ability to positively influence my surroundings.”
Developing local youth leaders like Melgar sets communities up to prosper and build resilience.
When young people see viable opportunities in their neighborhoods, they are less likely to migrate in search of better prospects, ensuring that their talents and innovations benefit their neighborhoods. This social and economic development approach helps build resilient, self-sustaining communities where future generations can thrive.
Weeks after Togo recorded its first case of COVID-19 in March 2020, Azizi Sedou noticed a deterioration in the relationship between youth and authorities in and around Cinkassé town in Togo’s Savanes region.
Preventive measures to curb the spread of the virus—including the banning of mass gatherings and closing markets, businesses and borders—had started to take a toll on the economic and social well-being of the population. Attempts to resist or enforce these orders often resulted in violent confrontations between security agencies and youth.
The frequent clashes concerned Sedou—he was often called on to intervene on behalf of the youth to resolve conflicts and saw first-hand how the situation negatively affected social cohesion.
Since his return to Cinkassé after graduating with a degree in human resource management from the university in Lomé, Sedou became a respected youth leader in his community.
“When friends tell me that what I’m doing is dangerous, the answer I often give them is that it’s because I want to be useful to my community. It’s my passion,” Sedou says.
In addition to his activism to calm tensions between youth and authorities, Sedou, who uses crutches, is passionate about ensuring that disabled people have equal opportunities and inclusion.
“I noticed that people with disabilities were discriminated against, and so as one of the few disabled university graduates, I wanted to change that narrative,” Sedou says.
Sedou’s activism secured him a spot as one of 120 youth representatives to receive training on preventing violent extremism, peacebuilding, social cohesion and early warning, an activity supported by the USAID/OTI Littorals Regional Initiative initiative facilitated by Timbuktu Institute and organized by Togo’s National Youth Council.
After the first training, Sedou and 19 other promising youth leaders were chosen to participate in an advanced advocacy and conflict-sensitive communication session.
“We [the youth] are the majority,” Sedou says. “We are also the ones being recruited to play a role in these conflicts. So, it is important that the young people are informed and get more involved so we can better preserve peace.” Sedou now goes from house to house to sensitize his peers and his community about the need for social cohesion, early warning and preventing violent extremism.
Sedou and his peers from the training have engaged more than 1,000 men, women and youth across Togo’s Savanes Region and continue to reach more residents. As a result of these engagements, the relationship between the authorities and youth has improved, evidenced by increased collaboration on information sharing and security updates.
“My dream is of Cinkassé where everyone is at peace, where there is this social cohesion, there are no prejudices based on ethnicities, social standing or disability,” Sedou says.
Youth are also mobilizing their peers and building opportunities and community in digital spaces.
Twenty-year-old Leticia Torres is smart, speaks quickly and is naturally outgoing, which has led her to use these talents for social good.
“Since I was very young, I have had this dream of getting involved in society, and that also implies being able to raise my voice for those who still cannot or perhaps could not do so,” says Torres, a Maya K’iche from an Indigenous community in Guatemala’s Western Highlands.
Torres’ activism made it natural for her to join the Red de Voceros y Voceras Juveniles para la Paz (Youth Voices for Peace). With more than 225 members from 15 municipalities, the group receives training on conflict transformation, cyber-activism and the risks of irregular migration.
With the support of USAID’s Tejiendo Paz (Peacebuilding Project)—which seeks local solutions to improve social cohesion, reduce conflict and address drivers of irregular migration—Voceros y Voceras Juveniles has sharpened Torres’ advocacy skills and enabled her to become integrated into a larger network of like-minded youth who collaborate to contribute to society.
“I learned that I could express my vote, start motivating other young people to share their opinions and together we could start proposing solutions,” Torres says. “This has helped me a lot to support others in questioning the social reality and thinking about what we can propose or plan in society. I consider this a very important foundation for me to make an impact.”
Voceros y Voceras Juveniles were trained to identify topics and work with local officials, such as addressing education in rural Guatemala, where school attendance and graduation levels are among the lowest in the country, particularly for Indigenous girls
Torres and her chapter in San Andrés Sajcabajá started a WhatsApp group to share information about free classes, scholarships and other educational opportunities.
“Starting a WhatsApp group may not seem like much, but the members who have joined have told me that they have benefited from various scholarships, calls for applications and free classes, such as free English courses,” Torres says.
Creating online opportunities for youth to access information and participate in their communities makes them stronger, more engaged members of society.
Rakiya Ali is an agronomist who rarely dirtied her hands. Instead, she focused on the scientific aspects of farming, seeds and other agricultural inputs.
It wasn’t until the 30-year-old had an opportunity to provide hands-on technical support to women farmers in northern Nigeria that she decided to get her hands dirty. Literally.
The USAID West Africa Trade & Investment Hub partnered with West African and U.S. companies to generate new private sector investment, create jobs, increase trade, protect natural resources and boost food security.
The Trade Hub partnered with Ali’s employer, Premier Seeds, in Kaduna State, Nigeria, to boost women’s opportunities in agriculture, from the research lab to the fields to the market. The program needed women with technical expertise to engage other women in this conservative part of northern Nigeria and encourage them to try their hands at farming. Ali jumped at the opportunity.
“You’d go to [women’s] houses, and their husbands will tell you that a male cannot enter,” Ali says. “They call those houses ‘bashiga.’ That loosely translates to mean ‘no entry.’ But as a woman, I can easily enter and interact freely with those women and try to pass the message and the knowledge of what the projects are about, what you’d like them to do and what the whole farming activity is about. The Trade Hub actually made that possible.”
Working alongside scores of women tilling, planting and harvesting their small plots encouraged her to give farming a shot. “I loved what I saw,” she says.
Following her own advice, Ali now cultivates soybeans and maize on two-and-a-half acres.
“I am very proud of the work I’m doing,” she says, juggling her full-time job at Premier Seeds with part-time farming chores. “It’s really empowering to see other people like me, young and female, embracing agriculture. It’s not the whole stereotypical aspect of having to see anything that has to do with farming is just for men. Now, you see a lot of women embracing farming. You see a lot of people embracing agriculture as an agri-business. And you see it’s creating a lot of jobs.”
Through the Trade Hub, Ali and other extension officers at Premier Seeds registered 786 farmers across seven states, of which 65 percent are youth and 70 percent are women.
In a courtyard in central Ramallah, in the West Bank, Palestinian children tried their hands at different Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics (STEAM) activities such as robotics, horticulture, engineering and more as they envisioned their futures as scientists and community leaders. The demand for these skills in STEAM-oriented occupations is rising globally.
For 21-year-old Sara Khader, this summer camp allowed her to engage bright, young minds as a facilitator.
“I decided not to take a summer course at university so that I would be a facilitator at this camp,” says the rising senior studying mechanical engineering at Birzeit University. “I love working with children, and I thought this would be a great opportunity not only for me to teach but also to learn new things from these children.”
The camp is organized by the Al Nayzak Organization, an NGO partnering with the USAID-funded Basic Education Activity in the West Bank and Gaza. Al Nayzak provided capacity-building training to facilitators like Sara to support children’s social and emotional skills through learning.
In addition to the camps, the Basic Education Activity will strengthen pre-primary education and remedial and extracurricular programming at the primary level in the West Bank and Gaza, targeting marginalized communities by providing literacy, numeracy and social and emotional support for children, parents and teachers in the region.
Khader is joined at the summer camp by other motivated facilitators, including engineering students, scientists and psychologists, who combine their talents to create a fun and educational summer camp.
Khader is passionate about educating children about the wonders of sustainable energy and how to be environmentally conscious. Though the campers are first to sixth graders, Khader is showing them how to build an isothermal home in which the indoor temperature remains constant despite the outside conditions.
“I love working with children, and I thought this would be a great opportunity not only for me to teach but also to learn new things from these children.”
“I think environmental sustainability is very important, and it’s very important to expose children to it at a very young age,” she says. “Unfortunately, Palestine isn’t exactly one of the leading countries addressing this kind of problem. So, we’re starting from a young age and teaching them these things so that in the future, they will become initiators and leaders in this kind of aspect of science.”
The 21-year-old credits her parents for encouraging her to learn and grow, a mindset she wants to pass along to the summer camp participants.
“I want them to become future leaders in their community and to take the initiative to solve problems,” Khader says. “Also, I want them to make new friends and to find themselves within this summer camp.”
Investing in youth means creating opportunities for young people to thrive and lead initiatives in their communities, laying the groundwork for generations to come.
With reporting by Atiewin Mbillah-Lawson, Luis Villatoro, Pariesa Brody, Hugo Perez and Sara Barker
Discover expert insights and inspiring stories from our programs around the world.
To promote democracy worldwide, the United States and global allies must support inclusive governance to create an enabling environment for credible, sustainable elections.
The international community provides significant funding and technical support for presidential and municipal elections around the globe. But despite these efforts, the alarming trend of democratic backsliding continues to threaten political stability and human rights. The 2023 Global State of Democracy Initiative report from International IDEA shows that more countries globally experienced “net declines in democratic performance than saw advances—for the sixth year in a row,” with no region of the world unaffected.
Notably, examples of these declines can be found in areas prioritized by the United States under the 2019 Global Fragility Act (GFA), including coastal West Africa, Haiti, and Libya, where, after the overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi, power struggles between seats of government in Tobruk and Tripoli devolved into civil war in 2014. Though the war ended in 2020, continued political power struggles and intermittent violence threaten Libya’s relative stability.
After seeing international community-backed elections efforts stall in priority areas like Libya, USAID and other international donors are increasingly applying a holistic approach to elections support, emphasizing inclusive governance as a critical component of sustainable elections.
In international development, programs that support inclusive governance address issues of equitable service delivery and representation in government and civil society that strengthen foundations for stable democratic institutions. A critical component of this representation is prioritizing the inclusion of entire communities
If governments and civil society effectively represent and respond to the populations they serve, including marginalized communities, these communities will have increased trust in local and national institutions and the democratic processes they promote, including elections.
Inclusive governance can itself create the conditions to promote free, fair and sustainable elections, but support for inclusive governance must continue even after the last votes are cast.
At Creative, we’ve seen the impact of inclusion in governance projects firsthand. In Burkina Faso, our USAID Inclusive Governance for Resilience (IGR) project works to ensure that marginalized populations are included in service delivery and local governance. In particular, IGR ensures that internally displaced persons (IDPs) can access necessary public services. The program helped over 42,000 citizens in IDPs and host communities receive national ID cards to access government services and vote in future elections.
In Guatemala, our USAID Peacebuilding Project supports the inclusion of indigenous community members in local government institutions. The project facilitates exchanges between indigenous and government authorities to coordinate conflict resolution and prevention practices. The role of indigenous protesters in blocking efforts to undermine Guatemala’s recent presidential election results shows how critical the inclusion of indigenous populations can be to strengthen democratic elections.
In Libya, recent inclusive governance programming emphasized government legitimacy and responsiveness, with lessons learned about the importance of inclusive and accountable governance to create the conditions for sustainable elections.
Creative’s Libyan Engagement and Governance Through Applied Learning – Legislative Enhancement for Governance Support project, funded by the State Department Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, worked with 179 legislatures and staff to strengthen their capacity for public outreach, providing training on how to incorporate public input in the legislative drafting process and design and conduct public outreach sessions.
Creative used data from our Fragility Resilience Assessment Method study, which indicated that women and youth felt excluded from civic engagement in cities throughout Libya, to inform these trainings and emphasize the importance of inclusion in public outreach efforts. A complementary Creative program, the Libya Electoral Security Planning and Implementation project, supported 12 municipal elections throughout the country, ensuring municipal governments strengthened their capacity to successfully administer elections.
The USAID-funded Taqarib project also worked to bolster local government and civil society capacity, strengthening municipal government service delivery, public participation, and policy execution and reform. Taqarib conducted surveys in 20 cities to measure the effectiveness of municipal government officials and citizen perceptions of the government’s legitimacy. Notably, these cities include several in the southern region of Fezzan, an area often excluded from national political governance in favor of the political centers of Tripoli and Tobruk. From these surveys, the program found “gaps” in each city between government effectiveness and legitimacy, attributed to service delivery, social and economic development and others.
In response, Taqarib conducted training and capacity building to increase governments’ effectiveness, and then re-surveyed citizens to determine if increased government capacity changed citizens’ perceptions of government legitimacy. It did. Even mid-project evaluations showed improvement in both effectiveness and perceived legitimacy in the project’s target cities, strengthening the foundation for increased civic engagement.
For the United States to meet the goals outlined in the GFA and support a stable, sustainable democracy in Libya, they must design and implement support that capitalizes on the relationship between democratic elections and inclusive governance, notably throughout the pre- and post-election cycles. This means prioritizing the inclusion of Fezzan in national governance efforts, including encouraging partnerships with civil society organizations with strong networks in the southern region, building cross-project collaboration requirements into project awards focused on elections and inclusive governance, and implementing electoral support projects with measurable inclusive governance objectives.
To create the conditions vital for sustainable democracy in Libya, the international community must promote inclusive governance as a necessary precursor and follow-on of elections.
Maverick, 27, a university student from the Western Highlands of Guatemala, is focused on finishing his thesis so that he can graduate with a degree in Agronomy Engineering for Agricultural Production Systems. He wants to use the degree to serve his community, particularly those in rural areas facing extreme poverty and food insecurity.
Maverick’s motivations extend to a larger community in Guatemala. He is openly gay and the co-founder of a local LGBTQI+ advocacy group called Comunidad Diversa Quiché (Diverse Community Quiché, in English).
When asked what motivates him the most, Maverick responds: “To feel that I am contributing to my community and working to help others.”
Even before launching Comunidad Diversa Quiché in 2023, Maverick always had the support of his family. Unfortunately, he could see that others who identify as LGBTQI+ don’t always have that same support.
“I am one of the few people in my community that is openly gay,” Maverick shares. “And I want my existence to have an impact, that others can see that they aren’t alone and that they belong to a community.”
To identify as LGBTQI+ in much of Guatemala results in discrimination and a lack of access to services, particularly in rural areas where there is a lack of knowledge.
“Making ourselves visible is something that is very important to us,” Maverick says. “Many believe that there are no LGBTQI+ people here. So, it is important to have these spaces, particularly within networks, to raise awareness and for people to know and understand that we exist and deserve the same rights. People need to know that they aren’t alone and that they have resources available to them.”
To address the range of complex challenges LGBTQI+ individuals face, particularly stigma, discrimination and prejudice-based violence, the USAID-supported Peacebuilding Project, or Tejiendo Paz in Spanish, partnered with Lambda, a local LGBTQI+ advocacy and human rights organization started by LGBTQI+ youth in 2010, to provide tailored support to emerging LGBTQI+ groups in the Western Highlands to strengthen their capacity to advocate for their human rights.
Tejiendo Paz works to reduce social conflict and violence and to strengthen social cohesion in the Western Highlands of Guatemala, reaching 133 communities in 15 municipalities. With USAID, Tejiendo Paz is implemented by Creative in partnership with PartnersGlobal and ProPaz.
When Maverick and his peers were starting Comunidad Diversa Quiché, Lambda approached them about receiving organizational development support, which they readily accepted.
Niray Vellafont, Lambda’s Advocacy Coordinator, has worked with Comunidad Diversa Quiché and other grassroots organizations to strengthen their advocacy skills. Vellafont, a transgender woman, emphasized the importance of providing this support through a local organization, noting that those who best know how to support LGBTQI+ individuals are those that also identify as LGBTQI+.
Vellafont becomes emotional when discussing Lambda’s work’s impact on emerging LGBTQI+ organizations. As an organization, they have never had the resources to work with grassroots organizations in rural areas, she says. Through this USAID-funded project, she has seen progress in the recognition of LGBTQI+ rights. She finds hope in seeing young activists from the region becoming more empowered in advocating for their rights and insisting on receiving respect and appropriate services from public institutions.
Lambda offers training and resources on organizational strengthening and advocacy to grassroots groups like Comunidad Diversa Quiché. From there, they work with each organization to identify their advocacy priorities based on the local context.
Maverick turns nostalgic when he recounts Comunidad Diversa Quiché’s first Lambda-supported activity. He was worried that few people would come, given the complicated context. But they filled the room with the LGBTQI+ community—and allies who wanted to show their support for human rights.
Comunidad Diversa Quiché conducted advocacy with public institutions to ensure that reporting routes for crimes against LGBTQI+ individuals were properly understood and implemented. While many local delegates were supportive and open to learning new concepts related to sexual orientation and gender identity, it was a challenge to help them unlearn long-held beliefs that were discriminatory and based on a lack of understanding of LGBTQI+ communities.
Comunidad Diversa Quiché also established an alliance with the Comprehensive Care Unit of the Regional Public Hospital in Quiché, where Maverick once faced discrimination. In response to the incident, he took action. Through Comunidad Diversa Quiché, Maverick has worked with the hospital to ensure that others in the community receive the attention they need and deserve. Because of this alliance, health care attention and services for LGBTQI+ individuals have improved.
For Maverick, Comunidad Diversa Quiché’s biggest success has been working with public entities to better support LGBTQI+ victims of violence and discrimination.
Maverick also notes that this success wouldn’t have been possible without support from other grassroots LGBTQI+ organizations that understand their reality. Trabajando Unidos, a group from Huehuetenango, provided advice and emotional support when Comunidad Diversa Quiché started out. Vidas Paralelas, a Quetzaltenango-based organization, has facilitated psychological support to Comunidad Diversa Quiché’s membership, which has grown to 38 people.
Henry España, Human Rights Ombudsman for Sexual Diversity, notes that the promotion and defense of LGBTQI+ human rights historically has taken place in Guatemala City, without a proper understanding of the realities of LGBTQI+ people in rural contexts. As a representative from a government institution, España values that new voices are being brought into advocacy spaces and believes that working with grassroots groups “is an opportunity to influence and obtain results that are more immediate and relevant to local context.”
According to Lambda’s Vellafont, Comunidad Diversa Quiché is just the start. While Lambda will continue to seek follow-on financial support, it will mentor and strengthen these nascent groups. Vellafont recognizes that there is still much work to be done, emphasizing that it is not just providing a couple of training sessions but rather is focused on long-term sustainability.
When asked where he sees the organization in five years, Maverick responds that he hopes they will have a physical space and will grow to be a stronger, more consolidated organization. He also shared that he hopes to be advocating in more spaces, particularly in public institutions where they have been rejected or told that they didn’t belong. Maverick is optimistic that the new Government of Guatemala administration will make real changes by creating safe spaces for the LGBTQI+ community and raising awareness about LGBTQI+ human rights.
When asked what he had learned from this experience, Maverick replied that “on a personal level, all of the effort is worth it.” He added, “At an organizational level, there is greater strength in unity.”
A 24-year-old Guatemalan woman from the community of San Lorenzo, Huehuetenango, stands out in the crowd. Her elaborate tattoos, jewelry, unconventional style and huge smile are the first things you notice. Her motto? “Your fight is my fight, and I hope that my fight is your fight.”
Alexandra Gonzalez is part of the LGBTQI+ community and a force to be reckoned with. She is a member of numerous social change networks and groups and an ardent defender of human rights.
Her activist spirit began to blossom from a young age, as Gonzalez participated in all types of activities, ranging from social projects to the arts to sporting events.
“Along with my sisters, I’ve always been very active in different organizations,” says Gonzalez. “That’s how I started getting to know new institutions, organizations, and people who began inviting me to meetings, workshops, or dialogues. That’s how I got involved in the things that interest me, like sexual and reproductive rights and social conflict.”
Participating in meetings was not enough, and Gonzalez wanted to develop skills to influence tangible change in her community. In 2021, she joined the Youth Voices for Peace Network, an initiative implemented by USAID and Creative Associates International through the Peacebuilding Project and the Central American Institute of Studies for Social Democracy.
A core focus of Voceros Juveniles is that youth are key partners in peacebuilding. They have an important role as agents of change able to promote harmony, peaceful coexistence and development in their communities.
“The curriculum with Voceros Juveniles is very complete. It goes from how to speak in public to how to have dialogue with authorities, because it’s not the same to speak with an authority as it is to speak with a friend,” explains Gonzalez. “I’ve also learned to use technological platforms to spread messages and share ideas with other young people.”
Voceros Juveniles is made up of 226 youth from different communities in Huehuetenango, Totonicapán, Quiche, and San Marcos. The purpose of the network is to promote and strengthen the capacities of youth like Gonzalez to carry out peacebuilding activities by building their leadership, skillsets, and their knowledge of technology and theater.
“The idea of using theater to address social problems is so you aren’t just talking at people, but you are also using audiovisual materials so that people can recognize the problem,” explains Gonzalez. “But it’s important to not use videos from Argentina or Spain or other countries when you can use stories made by people here, people who are affected by the social problem so that they feel identified with.”
During the height of the pandemic, Voceros Juveniles could not use traditional in-person theater due to social distancing restrictions, but that did not deter Gonzalez and her peers. Gonzalez and a group of Voceros Juveniles members throughout the Western Highlands created a script, recording video clips in their distinct locations and editing them together for a video entitled “The Trip” about migration. The video was shown at virtual Peace Fair events hosted by Voceros Juveniles but Gonzalez really felt the impact when she saw it shown in-person at different meetings with women’s organizations in Huehuetenango.
“Our work has come all this way,” says a proud Gonzalez.
“Being a member of Voceros Juveniles has opened the door to many new opportunities,” says Gonzalez. She has built her knowledge base in human rights, civic participation, and conflict resolution, which in turn has empowered her to defend LGBTQI+ rights in her community, for herself and her peers.
She volunteers doing human rights work for the LGBTQI+ community through Trabajando Unidos (a local nonprofit organization) and the Observatory of Reproductive Health but acknowledges the very limited safe spaces that exist for LGBTQI+ individuals in Guatemala.
“Many LGBTQI+ people prefer to stay closeted because they don’t want to be ostracized,” she says. “They say ‘I’m not going to come out as gay because it’s better to be able to put food on the table.’”
Gonzalez says that as a bisexual woman she has lived experiences of discrimination and violence, but she acknowledges that individuals of different sexual orientations and gender identity experience increased levels of discrimination and risk, stating that it is particularly difficult and even dangerous for transgender individuals and gay men to be out in Guatemala.
This has led her to the volunteer work and advocacy she does today. “It’s important to recognize that at the end of the day, we are a collective and to recognize that a collective fight is better for me, for you, for everyone now and for everyone to come,” says Gonzalez.
“If I can be part of that change, I want to be.”