Social capital, NGOs, and development: a Guatemalan case study

Abstract

Social researchers continue to grasp for critical factors that foster or impede the development of social capital. This article highlights some of these factors based on an investigation of a low‐income urban settlement in Guatemala. Community activists and leaders, elected representatives, regional government service providers, local residents, NGO directors and staff, and other key informants living and working within the designated locality indicated a complex and diverse range of social, cultural, political, and economic issues that contributed to low levels of ‘broad‐based’ social capital. Long‐standing fears related to violence and corruption within a historically top‐down authoritarian state were the most significant factors impeding social capital, social organising, and civic participation. Northern‐led service‐providing NGOs in the area also curbed ‘broad‐based’ social capital by fostering dependency through intervention strategies that were external, top down, non‐participatory, and not community based.

Notes

Hermandades are religious brotherhoods affiliated to the Catholic Church. Each aldea in the study area had at least one hermandad and some as many as 12. Each hermandad is responsible for organising a special religious feast day on the town's patron saint day. Hermandades may also organise funerals for members of the community but primarily for past or present members of the hermandad. The largest hermandades in the locality were made up mainly of men, but there were several examples of all‐women or mixed hermandades.

There were a number community improvement committees identified within the area. Typically one to three improvement committees existed in an aldea, depending upon its population size. LICs had a similar purpose of improving or developing infrastructure and services in their aldea, including maintenance and installation of new water systems, drainage, electricity, paved roads, bridges, clinics, improved local schools, sports fields, and community halls.

PHCs were initiated under the Department of Health Basic Health Services Programme in 1998 to involve local people in coordinating and implementing preventive health in remote and poorly covered urban areas. The key component of the programme revolved around the training and organising of a local PHC made up of part‐time and voluntary people working in their local communities. PHC members gathered health statistics on families every three months, compiled the data for the Department of Health, passed on information to local people, performed vaccinations, and maintained their own medicines.