In order to carry out its mission of establishing itself as a Think Tank that contributes to the Guatemalan national reality, FUNDESA created the Center of Initiatives for Development (CIDES in Spanish), as a space for generating analysis and discussion that aid the economic, social and political development of Guatemala. CIDES is linked to the Guatemalan society through Workgroups that were created following the National Business Forum in 2003. In this event, the participants defined the 10 most relevant topics that directly affected the development of Guatemala.
These topics were classified into three large areas which are the core of the work done by CIDES: Education, Institutional Modernization, and Competitiveness.
Action Plans have been developed for each one of these topics. These look to establish the Foundation as an institution of public appeal that day by day, aspires to become a source of information regarding development topics in Guatemala. This vision is based upon five basic principles that govern the actions of FUNDESA:
Virtue: utilizing our capacity to establish a proactive national agenda that delegates the preparation of national strategies oriented to the development of Guatemala on researchers and experts. This is done to follow up working strategies so that all objectives are met.
Relevance: to become a think tank that proposes and puts into practice all action plans and fosters their execution.
Resource Multiplication: taking advantage of the abilities and skills of our experts, FUNDESA seeks to aid other researchers so that ideas may be produced regarding each one of the topics that is considered important for the development of Guatemala.
Variety of Sources of Information: this principle seeks to have a large analytical framework where each of the initiatives can be integrated based upon the distinctive viewpoints of all social actors.
Dynamic Agenda: despite the fact that each one of the topics that FUNDESA touches on is included in each one of the three large areas, there is continuous discussion regarding the possibility of including new topics that complement the situational analysis of Guatemala regarding its development.
