Conclusion

Land settlement in Central America is a widespread and highly variable experience. The governments of the Central American countries face similar sets of problems, imposed by the similarities of environments, common concerns of international agencies and donors, and basic social and economic problems of developing countries. While no country in the region can be said to have encountered a "solution" to the problems of land settlement, the variety of experiments and programmes provides valuable experience for future efforts. An appreciation of what factors contributed to both the success and failure of these experiments will be an important step in the design of more effective strategies.