Honduras
By: Josue R. Cuevas
Agenda:
1. History and Geography
2. Education
3. Economy
4. Infrastructure
5. Industry
By: Josue R. Cuevas
History and Geography
Is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish
Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras(now Belize).
Bordered to the west by Guatemala, southwest by El Salvador,
southeast by Nicaragua, south by the Gulf of Fonseca and north by the
Gulf of Honduras (Caribbean Sea).
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With a size and population of approximately 112,492.5 km² and
eight million respectively (90% mixture of European and American
Indian, 7% Amerindian, 2% Black and 1% White), its capital is
Tegucigalpa.
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Honduras has a multi-ethnic prehistory. Probably the most important is
the Mayan presence around the city of Copan (near to the border with
Guatemala). This population disappear around 1200 and when
Christopher Columbus reached the Bay Islands on the coast of
Honduras in 1502, by that time only Lencas and Ch’orti’ population
ruled Honduras (which made the Spanish colonization easier).
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By September 15th 1821 the Spanish colony granted independency to
Honduras with the rest of the Central-American provinces (because
the local population fought for it for about 300 years)
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After more than 100 years Honduras was involved again in a war with
El Salvador in 1969 because of border issues; after Honduras won the
war the country was ruled by military forcers, by 1979 the country
returned to civilian rule (celebrated by general elections in 1981 where
Roberto Suazo Cordoba won).
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Since the 1980’s the guerrilla in Nicaragua and continues threads from
other countries has forced Honduras to spend large amount if its budget
in military development ,becoming one the most powerful and feared
armies in Central-America nowadays (army used by USA government
for the invasion of Iraq and considered as an elite force during the
invasion)
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Education
With a net primary enrollment rate of 92.5% unfortunately the
completion rate is approximately 45%. Above 80% of the population
is literate with education that include bilingual (Spanish-English) or
even trilingual (Spanish-English-German/Turkish) schools.
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With more than 10 private universities and just one public university,
higher education in Honduras is considered one of the best in the Latin
America. Honduras has the best universities for agronomy and industrial
education in Central America (Zamorano and UNITEC universities
respectively). However, master and PhD programs are not included in
this educational systems.
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Economy
The economy has a continuous but slowly grow, but the distribution of
the wealth remains very polarized with average wages remaining very
slow (something that changes during Mel Zelaya government in 20062009); however more than 50% of the population still remains below of
the poverty line, though the average grow averaged 7%, one of the most
successful growths in Latin America.
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With a about 30% of unemployment rate (which represents about 1.5
million people). Honduras is considered the third poorest country in the
Western Hemisphere after Haiti and Nicaragua.
After years of declining against the U.S. dollar the Lempira has
stabilized at around 19 Lempiras per dollar. In June 2008 the exchange
rate between United States Dollars and Honduran Lempiras was
approximately 1 to 18.85.
The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in Honduras is estimated in 33.371
billion us dollars in total and 4,175 us dollars per capita.
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A human development index (HDI) equal to 0.604 makes Honduras the
country number 106 in terms of education and life expectancy in the
world.
A great portion of the income in Honduras is thanks to tourism specially
in places such as Bay Island, Cortes, Gracias a Dios, etc.
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Infrastructure
More than half of the energy supply in Honduras is run by private sector,
the challenges in this area are:
1. How to finance investment
2. Re-balance tariffs and environmental concerns during
construction of hydroelectric plants
3. Improve access to rural areas.
Transportation in Honduras consist of: 699km of railway (which was
build for agriculture proposes but stolen by international organizations),
13,890 km of roadways, 7 ports and harbors, 112 airports (where only 12
of them are paved and only 3 of them are for commercial airlines)
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Many national and international non-governmental organizations have a
history of working on water and sanitation projects in Honduras, where one
of the most important is CARE international, which has many projects for
natural disasters emergency response and development in Honduras
(Rodolfo Cuevas: formal CEO in Honduras)
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Industry
By 2000 Industry supplied about 32% of the Honduras’ total GDP,
providing about 21% of the total work force in the country. This industry
includes textiles (which is the largest one), automobile panels, furniture,
construction supplies, plastic, processed food, shoes, beer and soft drinks,
oils and agriculture (where the largest ones are the banana and coffee).
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Assembly plant operations developed in the 70’s made Honduras one of
the favorite places for foreign industries investment (because of the free
trade zone established in Puerto Cortes-Honduras).
By 2002 Honduras was the second largest exporter on textile items on
the US market.
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In 2009, because of the military takeover Honduras experienced a political
and economical crisis, the country had mass protests and fights between
the people and the government. Many industries experienced dramatic
drops in their income; representing reduction of the work force.
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The political crisis meant for the construction industry represented a lost
of $201 million (34% drop compared with 2008), and a lost of 30,000
jobs for in 2009.
However, the apparel industry (textile) said that the situation was as
usual, since most of the companies have long term contract for supplying
US and European markets, and are exempt of any political regulation.
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