Visiting Honduras

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I recently made my last trip to Honduras as UK Ambassador. It was sad to say goodbye, but I’m happy that there are lots of good things for my successor to take on when she arrives in June. For example, during the visit I and Lisa (who is in charge of our Honduras project work) attended the soft launch of the new Land Rover showroom in Tegucigalpa. It’s a brand new purpose built showroom, which is a beautiful design and really shows off these stylish British cars. Jeremy Clarkson would have been proud! Transequipos (who have the franchise locally) are looking to expand what they do in Honduras and we’re keen to support them. We also caught up with HSBC to discuss not only business but their many outreach activities focused primarily around education and environmental protection.

 

A further important strand for future work involves the Presidential project of “charter cities” – the Economist recently published an article on this interesting project. The idea is to help areas of high potential to develop quickly as leading lights for foreign investment and as ambassadors for the country as a whole. Charter Cities will be given considerable financial and taxation autonomy and control over their local services. To become a charter city, the local population must agree by referendum to sign up to the initiative. As always, the devil will be in the detail and it will be important for individual “charter cities” to develop within the concept a system that works for them. We’ll continue to monitor the initiative carefully.

Hello!  Lisa here too.  Ahead of joining the Ambassador on her Tegucigalpa visit, I first paid a visit to our Honorary Consul and contacts in Roatan, and also visited project sites on the mainland with the UK-based NGO Progressio.  In Roatan, the P&O cruise ship Aurora had arrived in the Mahogany Bay port for the first time, so the Honorary Consul and I attended the official welcome ceremony on board, and were treated to a tour round this impressive vessel which is on a 3 month voyage starting and ending in Southampton, UK.  It was great to meet so many British staff (and over 30 other nationalities too!) and passengers on board.  In another meeting with a group of Bay Islanders, I was also able to hear about their concerns and vision for the development of the Islands, both economically and in terms of social and environmental needs.

Back on the mainland, Progressio kindly let me join their project visit west of Tegucigalpa, navigating thick fog and bumpy roads – but beautiful countryside – to Marcala towards the El Salvador border.  I was privileged to see the fruits of new systems of irrigation and crop rotation which small local producers have been implementing with the assistance of Progressio’s technical teams, and their work with Cooperatives in the area which are bringing more sustainable livelihoods and empowering women.  We also heard from community representatives in the unique location of Nahuaterique, successfully lobbying for Honduran nationality for their citizens and for municipality status to allow them greater opportunities to participate in civil society and benefit from economic and social initiatives.   It’s going to be another year of challenges for communities and authorities alike in Honduras, but we’re looking forward to maintaining and expanding the Embassy’s engagement with a range of people and groups there in the coming months.