Sponsor: U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID)
Countries: Belize, Bolivia, Dominican Republic,
Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama,
Peru
Program focus: Faculty development
Timeframe: 1977–1986
Description: LASPAU collaborated with USAID
missions and host country ministries on this effort to support basic development
projects at Latin American and Caribbean universities. A university’s
ability to provide service to the neediest sectors of the population was an
essential criterion for inclusion. The 164 university teachers, administrators,
and researchers funded by the program obtained master’s degrees at U.S.
institutions in fields including agriculture, food production, nutrition,
health, and education, with areas of concentration such as appropriate technology
and rural development.
More Information
Forty institutions were invited
to participate in the Training for Development Program. The following
text, taken from the October 1978 issue of LASPAU’s Informativo,
illustrates the kinds of projects the program intended to support:
In the Andean region, the Universidad Nacional “San Cristobal
de Huamanga” in Peru is well known for its training of generalists
equipped to deal with a variety of regional development needs.
There are many ponds and lakes in the region suitable for commercial
exploitation of fish, which could serve as an important future
source of income for many farmers. The university’s Department
of Biology has carried out feasibility studies on the raising
of various species of fish in these ponds. However, the emphasis
in Peru has traditionally been upon coastal fishing as opposed
to continental fisheries. Scholarship support has been requested
in this area. The university also maintains two local agricultural
training centers—one in the jungle and one in the sierra—each
of which maintains a model farm for the region. The centers
bring in leaders or representatives from local agricultural
cooperatives to receive practical training in pasture management,
cattle husbandry, and rural construction. The leader then returns
to serve as a resource for the cooperative.
In Bolivia, USAID’s development activities in public health
include the construction of potable water supplies and the development
of a rural health delivery system. However, such developments
are hindered by a serious lack of public health personnel. In
all of Bolivia, there are only 12 fully trained public health
physicians and two nurses with public health training. In nutrition,
AID is working with government agencies and the Planning Ministry
to deal with the serious malnutrition problem affecting children
under six (40% suffering from first-degree malnutrition and 15-20%
from second-degree malnutrition) and pregnant and lactating women.
With only 44 nutritionists in the country, 11 of whom work in
rural areas, an increase of qualified nutrition personnel is essential
to any improvement. Therefore, LASPAU invited rural health programs
at the Universidad de San Simon and San Francisco Xavier and at
the Universidad de San Andrés (which has the only nutrition
department in the country) to participate in the program.
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