Guatemala $825,000

A. Strengthening Guatemala’s National-Level Civil Society Institutions and Policies

ActionAid USA: $30,000 Recommended for the Plataforma Agraria (Agrarian Platform), a coaliton of grassroots organizations and national non-governmental organizations that will use comprehensive rural development proposals to inform Guatemala policy-makers and multilateral aid agencies about the need to transform the rural economy in Guatemala, and create a broad consensus on strategies for such a transformation within Guatemalan civil society.

Asociación para la Promoción y el Desarrollo de la Comunidad – Ceiba: $50,000 a) For confronting Guatemala’s Gold Rush: from the Grassroots to the Internacional, a joint project with Friends of the Earth-Canada to address the growing problems associated with the mining sector in Guatemala, by providing technical assistance, organizing support, media outreach and coordination with local and national Guatemalan organizations that are struggling against international mining concessions that have been granted without consultation on indigenous lands ($20,000); and b) for its project working with local civil society organizations to develop alternatives to the current globalization model in Guatemala and to disseminate these ideas widely. ($30,000)

Asociación de Servicios Comunitarios de Salud (ASECSA): $30,000 For its Agriculture for Health Program, which promotes organic agriculture and the cultivation of traditional herbal remedies, as well as food security and land rights of indigenous farmers.

Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA): $75,000 Recommended for a) the Asociación de Mujeres Madre Tierra, a grassroots organization of indigenous and campesina women from the South Coast, whose activities include organizing a leadership training seminar for women activists ($25,000); b) the Asociación Nacional de Mujers Guatemaltecas Ixmucané, a grassroots organization of indigenous and campesina women in the department of the Petén, whose activities include providing leadership training to rural women and promoting women’s land rights ($20,000); and c) Sinergia No’j, formerly CEDPA Guatemala, which seeks to help Guatemalan civil society organizations work together to develop and implement social change strategies and train individual leaders to act as human rights advocates and agents of conflict transformation. ($30,000)

Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH): $40,000 For its Justice and Reconciliation project, whose activities include working with indigenous communities to prosecute high officials of two past administrations for genocide and other crimes against Guatemala's indigenous peoples.

Ecologic Development Fund: $25,000 Recommended for Trópico Verde, an environmental justice organization working to educate Guatemalan policymakers on environmental issues, mobilize broad social participation in environmental protection, and promote conservation and rational use of Guatemala's ecosystems.

Myrna Mack Foundation: $40,000 For its Strengthening the Rule of Law in Guatemala project, which seeks to fight impunity by reforming the justice system, strengthening civilian control of the military and working with other human rights organizations to press for the establishment of a Commission for the Investigation of Illegal Bodies and Clandestine Security Apparatus -- CICIACS.

Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA): $45,000 Recommended for a) Naleb', a Guatemalan indigenous rights organization that promotes intercultural mediation and respect for the country's different cultures within the Guatemalan state and society ($25,000); and b) Coordinación de Acompañamiento Internacional de Guatemala - CAIG/ACOGUATE - to coordinate volunteers servings as human rights observers/accompaniers in over 30 communities whose members have brought charges of genocide against past government officials. ($20,000)

Oxfam America: $30,000 Recommended for the Pop No’j Educational Program, which provides leadership development and policy support to indigenous organizations in the thematic areas of land rights, sustainable development, and rights of indigenous women. Pop No’j also seeks to generate opportunities for dialogue and coordination between indigenous and non-indigenous organizations working on these issues.

Rights Action: $45,000 Recommended for a) the National Coordinator of Indigenous and Campesino Organizations (CONIC), a Guatemalan organization working with rural indigenous communities for economic justice and for legal rights to their lands ($35,000); and b) the CONIC Women’s Commission, which seeks to increase the participation of women within CONIC. ($10,000) www.rightsaction.org

B. Strengthening Capacity and Civil Society at the Local Level

Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA): $22,000 Recommended for the Asociación Comunitaria de Desarollo Integral Mam (ACODIMAM), a grassroots community development organization working to promote community action, sustainable development and reproductive health in Mam communities in the states of Quetzaltenango and San Marcos.

Ecologic Development Fund: $35,000 For its Guatemala project, which works with rural communities to build capacity for sustainable development and to design innovative strategies for natural resource management.

Ecologic Finance: $30,000 For general support of this organization, a loan fund that fosters biodiversity conservation and community-based, socially equitable economic development.

Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA): $33,000 Recommended for a) the Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular-CIEP, which works to strengthen and consolidate individual and collective leadership among rural women ($30,000) and b) for two CIEP partners in the Peten, the Frente Petenero Contra Las Represas and the Women’s Association of the Nuevos Horizontes Cooperative. ($3,000)

Rights Action: $50,000 For a) Rights Action's Community-based Human Rights Defenders project in Guatemala, which provides education, training, and financial support to human rights organizations working at the community level in the regions most affected by repression during the civil war ($30,000); and b) for relief efforts in response to Hurricane Stan ($20,000).

Strategies for International Development (SID): $30,000 For SID’s project to help farm families in 44 communities in the Chimaltenango region reclaim and protect their watersheds and farmland while at the same time increasing their income and productivity, and to use SID's sustainable farming techniques.

Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS): $20,000 For the Community-based Forest and Concession Management Project in Uaxactún, Guatemala, which is an internationally recognized model project that helps this community generate income while conserving natural resources.

World Neighbors: $60,000 a) For its Guatemala program, which provides technical assistance to community-based organizations in sustainable farming techniques that conserve natural resources while increasing families' income, trains reproductive health promoters, and brings the concerns of local communities to the national dialogue on rural development strategies ($35,000); and b) recommended for Asociación Ija'tz, which provides training and technical assistance to indigenous small-scale farmers in the Lake Atitlán area to strengthen sustainable farming practices, increase income, increase women’s participation in their communities, and demonstrate innovative techniques to local farmers and visitors from across Guatemala. ($25,000)

C. Promoting a Just U.S. and Multi-Lateral Policy Toward Guatemala that Fosters Human Rights and Socioeconomic Justice

Latin America Working Group Education Fund (LAWG): $40,000 For general support of this organization, which seeks to promote human rights in U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America.

Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA): $45,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include promoting human rights and the implementation of the Peace Accords in Guatemala and a U.S. policy that supports these goals.

Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA): $50,000 For Human Rights and Equitable Rural Development in Guatemala, a project to support human rights, democratic consolidation, and social and economic justice in Guatemala through policy advocacy and media outreach in both the United States and Guatemala.