Research for development
The activity of Fundación ETEA in the area of development includes both direct intervention (projects and programmes) and indirect intervention (consultancies, technical assistance, evaluations), always taking advantage of each experience to contribute to the research in development.
Reference programmes
In the field of Regional Cooperation, Fundación ETEA has a long history of work, collaborating intensely with the institutions of the Central American Integration System (SICA) and the cooperation programmes with SICA from Spain (Spain-SICA Fund), the European Union and other international organizations, such as the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) or the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), through the support to the strengthening of the institutional architecture and the promotion of regional public policies.
Fundación ETEA accumulates nearly two decades of work in the western part of Honduras, implementing, together with its network of local partner institutions, development cooperation interventions mainly linked to local and rural development in the cocoa and coffee sectors (value chains, labour promotion, entrepreneurship and business management), food and nutritional security, support to the fight against gender violence and women’s empowerment, as well as the access of rural communities to renewable energies and information and communication technologies.
ETEA Foundation has been carrying out consultancies, technical assistance, evaluations and systematizations for nearly twenty years in order to support both local, regional and national public institutions and international organizations in the elaboration of strategic documents and development cooperation policies, as well as in the evaluation and systematization of programmes and projects within this field.
In 1988, an intensive programme of university cooperation began in the Central American region, which has been extended to other regions and countries. This activity has been directed at supporting the new training programmes launched by the Central American Universities of the Society of Jesus in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. The most notable example is the Regional Master’s Degree in Central American Integration and Development, supported by the SG-SICA and Fundación ETEA – Loyola University , which began its first edition in 2012 and has initiated its third edition in 2020.
Within the Loyola University community, Fundación ETEA has been promoting for several years the reflection and debate on the issue of development from the university, collaborating with the Development Commission of Loyola University in its Open and Permanent Seminar, as well as setting up events and seminars in areas such as Fair Trade or Sustainable Development Goals, among others.
Loyola students are especially important for Fundación ETEA. In this sense, several editions of the International Cooperation Internship Programme have already been carried out, an initiative to bring university students closer to the reality of developing countries, through professional practices in organisations and institutions that collaborate with the foundation as well as in cooperation projects implemented by the entity itself. Likewise, a project has been implemented to carry out Service Learning (SL) experiences by university students, focusing on Education for Development actions as an educational process aimed at generating critical awareness of the local and global reality and providing tools for participation and social transformation in the key of justice and solidarity.