Resource information
The Honduras Land Access Pilot Project
(PACTA) from 2001-2006 supported the acquisition of land and
the formation of sustainable farm enterprises by
self-organized landless and land-poor peasant families. The
Government is now scaling up and diversifying the pilot into
a national program far more inclusive than the current
model. The SDR 6.2 million pilot project proved the
viability of a public-private partnership strategy, with the
private sector lending for land purchase and public sector
funds being used for complementary investments and services
to improve productivity and build capacity for independent
development. The program was broadly aimed at the rural
population with no access to land or precarious access to
small parcels for subsistence production. Of the 1,226
families that took part in the program, 991 were part of
this group day laborers, sharecroppers, or other kinds of
subsistence producer. The rest were poor families with
access to municipal forestland (two sub-projects) or
communal land (one sub-project). These sub-projects were
implemented at the end of the pilot phase. In addition, the
sub-projects supported by PACTA in forest communities and
afro-Honduran communities are promising for the
diversification of economic activities in areas like
tourism, crafts, fishing, sustainable timber harvest and
wood processing, and environmental services. From this point
of view, the achievements and lessons learned in the pilot
project could be meaningful in the design of similar
processes, not necessarily involving land purchase
