Sustainable Tourism at USAID
 |
Improved livelihoods and increased
opportunities for education
frequently accompany tourism investments. |
As with other global development assistance agencies, USAID is increasingly turning to tourism programs and activities to achieve its goals of reducing poverty and improving livelihoods in the world’s less developed countries. The Agency recognizes that sustainable tourism has potential for promoting economic growth, and alleviating poverty, and gender equity, global health, and local governance. It also provides new economic opportunities for women, and gives communities greater control over managing the natural resources on which they depend.
Since 2000, the Agency has initiated or completed 123 projects in 72 countries that either specifically relate to the tourism sector or else use tourism as a component for achieving other, broader objectives. USAID and Sustainable Tourism: Meeting Development Objectives (3.077MB PDF) provides a description of USAID’s cross-sectoral portfolio of tourism programs and activities. These are also catalogued in a searchable database that provides links to project descriptions and associated documents.
USAID is evaluating its tourism portfolio to see where it can replicate and improve upon results achieved, and is developing guidelines and tools to assist its field and headquarters offices with the design and implementation of successful sustainable tourism programs. Highlights of USAID’s tourism sector portfolio were presented to the global tourism community by former USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios (51KB PDF) at UN-WTO’s Policy Forum, convened in Washington, D.C., in October 2004.
Back to Top ^
|
