Honduras President Porfirio Lobo Sosa

The Government of Honduras is experimenting with new institutions and measures to see if it achieves the goal of reducing the indices that have the country labeled as the most violent in the world. Yesterday the Government installed the National Council for coexistence and citizen security (Consejo Nacional de Convivencia y Seguridad Ciudadano), this new body is comprised of all social and economic sectors of the country with State institutions to coordinate the actions of prevention of violence.

The body is composed of representatives of the central workers, the Honduran Council of private enterprise (COHEP), churches, the boards, municipalities, some media and several bodies of State working on control and prevention of violence. President Porfirio Lobo said that this new body is integrated to the whole society to participate in the fight against crime with a focus on prevention.

He explained that the Agency will coordinate actions taken by the Government, civil society and non-governmental offices to allow the unification a greater preventive impact. Pepe Lobo asked that organized women, young people and students join this forum because “the women and youth are great allies in the fight for good and peace by participating in activities that avoid deviating from the right path”.

INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT
For his part, the Deputy Minister of security, Marcela Castañeda, reported that this project has the support of the United Nations programme for development (UNDP), world (BM) Bank Inter-American Bank of development (IDB), the German and Swiss cooperation and the United States Agency for international development (USAID). On the other hand, the spokesman for the Security Ministry, Hector Ivan Mejia, explained that it seeks to involve all State bodies, local governments, community leaders and other actors that help to develop such a strategy in their communities.