Evaluation of Guatemala WFP Country Strategic Plan 2021–2025

Guatemala is a middle-income country with 17 million inhabitants, 56 percent of whom live in poverty. Rates of malnutrition are among the highest in the Latin America and the Caribbean region. Close to half of the population is Indigenous, and people from Indigenous communities are disproportionately represented in the poverty statistics because they face intersecting inequalities and discrimination, with particular impact on women and girls.

The evaluation concludes that the plan was appropriately designed in relation to needs and was coherent with government aims, supporting national policies and programmes with the purpose of improving food security and nutrition, responding to climate-related shocks and building community resilience.

The evaluation makes five recommendations, of which three are strategic and two operational: 

1. Strengthen internal coherence and effectiveness by defining a strategy for combining capacity strengthening for national and local institutions with the implementation of projects at the local level;
2. Define a strategy for ensuring the sustainability of improvements in procurement and distribution processes through capacity strengthening for relevant institutions;
3. Strengthen the capacities of WFP and its partners at the local level;
4. Maintain and reinforce a culturally appropriate and inclusive approach to the implementation of the country strategic plan; and
5. Further strengthen the implementation of the regional gender policy and strategy, challenge gender stereotypes and encourage shared responsibility for domestic and care-giving tasks.