Project assistance completion report [: 596-0177 partnership for democracy and development] -- ILANUD

In a cooperative effort involving USAID/Costa Rica, the Costa Rican Ministry of Justice, and the Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of the Offender (ILANUD), more than 30 justice improvement project profiles were developed and presented to regional donors. Of these, USAID/CR funded four, and many others were funded by other donors and are being implemented throughout Central America. The four USAID subprojects were conceived as pilot activities to improve training, coordination, and planning in Central American justice institutions. Three were implemented by ILANUD: (1) a National Commissions subproject supported the creation and strengthening of national justice sector planning and coordination bodies; (2) a program to train local judges and develop training modules and materials for judicial schools; and (3) a program to develop a computerized databank on the administration of justice. The fourth subproject, implemented by the Costa Rican Judicial School, developed training of trainer courses on regional topics to strengthen existing national judicial schools and training programs. The subprojects expanded and contracted in response to funding availability and level of local USAID Mission interest. Thus, the National Commissions subproject was reformulated to limit its work to developing new statistical planning systems in Honduras, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, while the local judges training subproject was limited to Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. On the other hand, the Regional Program of Support to National Judicial Schools held local fora in every Central American country, developed training materials, and held three regional training sessions. The databank subproject developed an Administration of Justice Information System (SIAJ), which has been offered via the Internet to numerous justice sector institutions. Each of the four USAID subprojects left a replicable methodology, numerous didactic materials, and permanent statistical and information systems which will continue to serve the Central American justice sector. However, given the decreasing U.S. and other donor interest in pursuing a multilateral approach to supporting justice institutions, the success of the subprojects must be measured at the local rather than the regional level. The project was extremely complex and never fully understood by either the donor community or the institutions it was designed to serve. Implementation proved difficult to the hundreds of subprojects developed for the various donors. Consequently, the USAID subprojects were constantly faced with questions concerning the viability of the regional initiative. Nonetheless, ILANUD worked with USAID/CR to make sure that the subprojects provided a useful complement to local Missions' bilateral initiatives.