In November 2019, our evaluation team for the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) Small Grants Program (SGP) successfully completed the last round of data collection in Belize, Costa Rica and Panama after meeting and conducting numerous interviews with program managers and leadership personnel at each US Embassy, civil society representatives, and host government officials.

To date, and across the three target countries, our participatory and mixed-methods approach has guided the team’s efforts in conducting more than 130 key informant interviews, three focus group discussions with past program participants, and in surveying over 3,000 citizens on perceptions of safety and state presence. 

The CARSI SGP program is an initiative funded by the USState Department in Belize, Costa Rica and Panama since 2012, and aims to advance community-based crime and gang prevention and economic and social programming for at-risk youth and communities disproportionately affected by crime.