For immediate release Wednesday November 5th 2014
Contacts: Esther Brol /+502 55124024 / guatemala-network@social-progress.org
(Guatemala)
NETWORK OF LEADERS COMMIT TO DRIVING
SOCIAL PROGRESS IN GUATEMALA
Guatemala City, November 5, 2014 — The Social Progress Imperative (SPI) has announced
the formation of #Progreso Social Guatemala, a new cross-sector partnership with the goal
of improving the social conditions of the 15 million citizens in Guatemala.
The new partnership comprises members of Guatemala’s private sector, business leaders
and community groups including local representatives of Fundación AVINA, Deloitte,
alumni of INCAE Business School, CiC Entrepreneurs (VIVA Trust's Center for
Knowledge Exchange) and Grupos Gestores.
The members of the steering committee agreed to:
1. Create and promote the Social Progress Network in Guatemala (#Progreso Social
Guatemala), in order to develop specific actions for improving human wellbeing in
Guatemala, especially of the least well-off.
2. Disseminate the results of the Social Progress Index as well as relevant experiences
according to the country’s main priorities so that its diffusion contributes to raise
greater awareness on the relevance of human wellbeing and social progress.
3. Contribute to the growth of the Social Progress Network in Guatemala, inviting social
innovators and other strategic actors from different sectors interested to participate in
this initiative.
4. Foster cross-sector collaboration among social innovators from government, the private
sector, civil society and academia in order to set out a shared agenda to improve social
progress.
5. Promote applied research and facilitate social innovations around the initiatives
developed by the Social Progress Network in Guatemala.
Roberto Artavia Loría, vice chair of the Board of Directors of the Social Progress
Imperative, who presented at the launch of #Progreso Social Guatemala, said: “The social
progress index is providing a new and enlightening global perspective on the social
conditions of hundreds of millions of people across the world. The formation today of this
new steering committee in Guatemala will help to advance the cause of social progress yet
further by bringing together a coalition of experts and leaders from across the whole of
Guatemalan society. The steering committee is well placed, not just to discuss, debate and
plan for improvements, but more importantly to drive that change at a grassroots level.”
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The 2014 Social Progress Index results for Guatemala show the country is performing
relatively well in providing access to Water and Sanitation and in safeguarding the Personal
Rights of its population, when compared with countries with same levels of GDP per
capita. On the other hand, the most pressing social progress challenges in Guatemala, as in
other countries in the Latin American region, relate to Personal Safety and Access to
Higher Education. The report also highlights important deficits the country has in securing
basic human needs of its population and in tolerance and inclusion.
Emmanuel Seidner, a businessman, academic, congressman and founder of the new
steering committee, said, “This is an exciting step forward. The coming together of this
diverse group of senior leaders from across civil society, business and government has the
power to be genuinely transformative: driving social progress improvements across a wide
range of areas here in Guatemala.”
Ruben Morales, Manager of export services of AGEXPORT, and member of the new
steering committee, said, “Using this kind of tool allows us to enrich the debate with regard
to the importance of working in public policies that may be imperative for a country.”
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Notes to editors:
About #Progreso Social Guatemala
#Progreso Social Guatemala is a new network of partners convening different sectors of
society in Guatemala around the shared objective of improving human wellbeing,
especially of the least well-off. Since May 2014, the steering committee has held meetings
with different organizations that have been invited to participate in the network. They are:
1. Asociación de Investigación y Estudios Sociales (ASIES)
2. Centro de Investigaciones Económicas Nacional (CIEN)
3. Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Regionales (CEUR)
4. Instituto de Investigaciones de los Problemas Nacionales (IPNUSAC)
5. Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO)
6. Central American Business Intelligence (CABI)
7. Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Sociales y Desarrollo (INCEDES)
8. Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales (IDIES)
9. Instituto de Agricultura, Recursos Naturales y Ambiente (IARNA)
10. Instituto de Investigaciones y Gerencia Política (INGEP)
11. Fundación Para el Desarrollo de Guatemala (FUNDESA)
12. Central American Healthcare Initiative (CAHI)
13. FUNDAZUCAR
14. Fundación AVINA Guatemala
15. Asociación Amigos Pro-Obras Sociales
16. Clubes Rotarios de Guatemala
17. Fundación Almo
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18. Fundación Fe y Alegría
19. Fundación Myrna Mack
20. WAKAMI
21. HELPS International
22. Red Nacional de Grupos Gestores
23. Asociación de Graduados de INCAE (AGI)
24. CISCO Guatemala
25. Secretaría General de Planificación (SEGEPLAN)
26. Programa de VIH/SIDA del Ministerio de Salud
27. Secretaría de Integración Económica Centroamericana (SIECA)
Other meeting participants: The Guatemalan Minister of Economy, Sergio de la Torre
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Progreso-Social-Guatemala/1479105189045263
https://twitter.com/progreSOcialgt
#ProgresoSocialGuatemala
About the Social Progress Imperative
The Social Progress Imperative’s mission is to improve the lives of people around the
world, particularly the least well off, by advancing global social progress by: providing a
robust, holistic and innovative measurement tool—the Social Progress Index; fostering
research and knowledge-sharing on social progress; and equipping leaders and changemakers in business, government and civil society with new tools to guide policies and
programs. The Social Progress Imperative is registered as a non-profit organization in the
United States, and is grateful to the following organizations for their financial support:
Cisco, Compartamos Banco, Deloitte Global, Fundación Avina, The Rockefeller
Foundation, and the Skoll Foundation.
https://www.facebook.com/socialprogressimperative
https://twitter.com/socprogress
About the Social Progress Network
The Social Progress Network is an expanding global movement of national networks, e.g.,
#Progresso Social Brasil, that connects social innovators across sectors and around
actionable metrics to improve human well-being. Country-level networks are composed of
multiple organizations, including corporations, civil society and philanthropic
organizations, branches of government, and academia, partnering to tackle challenges to
social progress and human wellbeing.
What is social progress?
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Social progress is defined as the capacity of a society to meet the basic human needs of its
citizens, establish the building blocks that allow citizens to improve their lives, and create
the conditions for individuals and communities to meet their full potential.
For more information on Guatemala in the Social Progress Index, please visit:
http://www.socialprogressimperative.org/data/spi/countries/GTM#partner_network/compon
ents/GTM/
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