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A Review of Development Planning in Guatemala

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Don R. Hoy
Don R. Hoy*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, The University of Georgia
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Extract

Planning is often analogous to weather in that everyone discusses it but little is really done. Such, at least, is the case in Guatemala where individuals, groups, and the government espouse a need for development planning in eloquent terms but produce few positive results. In Guatemala, however, it is increasingly recognized that planning can be a logical and relatively scientific method of improving resource utilization. The purpose of this paper is to appraise a few general aspects of development planning in Guatemala and to characterize its organizational structure and the political constraints imposed upon the process.

Governments are assuming a more dominant role in development, particularly in the less advanced areas. Public opinion has generally supported this trend by criticizing development programs or blaming the lack of development on the government.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , April 1970 , pp. 217 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1970

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References

1 See, for example, La situación del desarrollo económico y social de Guatemala (Ciudad Guatemala: Secretaría General del Consejo Nacional de Planificación Económica, 1965); Primeros lineamientos para el programa de inversiones públicas, 1965-1969 (Ciudad Guatemala: Secretaría General del Consejo Nacional de Planificación Económica, 1965); and Comité de los Nueve, Evaluación del plan de desarrollo económico y social de Guatemala, 1965-1969 (Washington: Agency for International Development, 1966).

2 Other suggestions for development are to be found in: Britnell, G. E., “Problems of Economic and Social Change in Guatemala,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 17 (November 1951): 468–481 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Factors in the Economic Development of Guatemala,” American Economic Review 43 (Part n , 1953): 104-114.

3 This feeling has been incorporated in the constitution of 1965. See article 125, Constitution of the Republic of Guatemala, 1965 (Washington: Pan American Union, 1966).

4 See also Suslow, Leo A., Aspects of Social Reforms in Guatemala, 1944-1949, mimeographed (Hamilton, New York: Colgate University, Latin American Seminar Reports, no. 1, 1949).Google Scholar

5 Recommendations made to the Guatemalan government at their request by Ovalle, N. K., Industrial Report on the Republic of Guatemala, mimeographed (Washington: Inter-American Development Commission, 1946).Google Scholar

6 A biased but interesting and informative account is found in Rosenthal, Mario, Guatemala (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1962)Google ScholarPubMed; see also Newbold, Stokes, “Receptivity to Communist Fomented Agitation in Rural Guatemala,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 5 (1957): 338–361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Pearson, Ross, “Land Reform, Guatemalan Style,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 22 (April 1963): 225–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Fuentes, Miguel Ydígoras, My War with Communism (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963).Google Scholar

9 An analysis of public finances is in Franklin B. Sherwood, “The Role of the Central Government in the Economic Development of Guatemala,” Ph.D. dissertation (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois, 1966).

10 A partial review of FYDEP's goals and projects is in Primer seminario nacional sobre el desarrollo integral de El Petén (Ciudad Guatemala: Centro para el Desarrollo de la Administración Publica, 1964).

11 See Hildebrand, John R., “Farm Size and Agrarian Reform in Guatemala,” Inter-American Economic Affairs 16 (Autumn 1962): 51–57 Google Scholar; “Guatemalan Rural Development: An Economist's Recommendations,” Inter-American Economic Affairs 17 (Summer 1963): 59-71; and, “Guatemalan Colonization Projects: Institution Building and Resource Allocation,” Inter-American Economic Affairs 19 (Spring 1966): 41-51.

12 See Ebel, Roland H., “Political Change in Guatemalan Indian Communities,” Journal of Inter-American Studies 6 (January 1964): 91–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 See Tax, Sol, “The Indian in the Economy of Guatemala,” Social and Economic Studies 6 (September 1957): 413–424 Google Scholar, and Horst, Oscar H., “The Specter of Death in a Guatemalan Highland Community”, Geographical Review 57 (April 1967): 151–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 See Wagley, Charles, Economics of a Guatemalan Village (Menosha, Wisconsin: American Anthropological Association, Memoirs no. 58, 1941).Google Scholar

15 A good example of sectorial planning in western Guatemala with area considerations is Gould, Peter R. and Leinbach, Thomas R., “An Approach to the Geographic Assignment of Hospital Services,” Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 57 (September-October 1966): 203–206.Google Scholar

16 Budget considerations have been a limiting factor for many years. See Adler, John H. et al., Public Finance and Economic Development in Guatemala (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1952).Google Scholar

17 The office did publish Regionalización preliminar del territorio de la República de Guatemala (Ciudad de Guatemala: Secretaría General del Consejo Nacional de Planificación Económica, 1966). The purpose of this publication was to suggest planning regions for development but its recommendations were not accepted.

18 These problems are well defined in their setting by Jones, Chester L., Guatemala: Past and Present (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1940)Google Scholar; and Whetten, Nathan L., Guatemala: The Land and the People (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1961).Google Scholar