Conflict Mitigation Project

General

The goal of the Conflict Mitigation Project is to reduce social conflict and violence and increase social cohesion in Guatemala's Western Highlands region. Using a community-based development approach, the project will work to empower traditionally marginalized sectors to engage in dialogue and develop strategies for sustained peace. Leveraging a network of community facilitators, community members will identify conflicts and develop corresponding action plans. An example of an action plan activity would include training community members in mediation to address water access disputes in a community. The action plans will be funded through small grants and supported by partnerships with government and civil society, including the private sector. The project will focus on specific categories of social conflict, including youth and family, governance, land rights, and natural resource exploitation. By building partnerships between communities and governing institutions-such as the Coordinating Presidential Commission for Executive Policy on Human Rights and the Presidential Commission for Dialogue-and increasing these institutions' response capacity, the project will increase confidence in state institutions' ability to prevent violent conflict. Activities aim to reduce community-level social conflict and violence and increase social cohesion in the Western Highlands, thus reducing the flow of irregular migration to the United States.