The United States invested heavily in efforts to secure a lasting peace in El Salvador. The USAID assistance program has played an enormous part in the successful transition to democracy and economic liberalization, which today stands as a model for other post-conflict, developing nations. Yet, endemic rural poverty remains a serious problem as more than 60% of rural residents live in poverty. One manifestation of the poverty is the exodus of Salvadorans to the United States, where more than 1.5 million Salvadorans reside. By promoting equitable economic development in tandem with the Agency’s new Opportunity Alliance, USAID can have an impact on promoting rural prosperity by strengthening democratic institutions, addressing pressing environmental and social issues, and improving the health conditions of women and children.

The need for continued strong USAID support to El Salvador became even more compelling with the enormous human and economic suffering caused by the 2001 earthquakes. These terrible disasters resulted in the loss of 1,159 lives, produced almost $2 billion in damages, and destroyed or severely damaged a wide swath of social infrastructure including 277,000 homes. USAID’s response to these disasters is the Earthquake Recovery Program (ERP). The ERP has four major components, including the restoration of community infrastructure; economic reactivation working primarily with micro and small businesses and farmers; disaster mitigation to assist El Salvador to better prepare for future disasters; and the restoration of municipal government infrastructure.

USAID/El Salvador continues to implement its core program strategy, "Sustainable Development & Democracy in El Salvador." The strategy focuses on helping to consolidate peace, promote democracy and alleviate poverty. The strategy consists of programs in Economic Growth and Education (including promoting sound economic policies, providing access to credit to micro and small enterprises and small farmers, helping farmers diversify crops and improve technology and marketing skills, and improving access to quality basic education); Democracy and Governance (including rule of law activities, strengthening municipalities, encouraging citizen participation, promoting civil society advocacy and supporting community policing initiatives); Health (including expanding rural health care; improving nutrition, breastfeeding and pre-natal care; preventing and treating TB, diarrhea and HIV/AIDS; expanding the strategy for management of childhood illnesses, and encouraging decentralized delivery of health services); and Water and Environment (including watershed protection, provision of clean water, and education campaigns on water and hygiene). Our target group for all of these programs is women, children and youth living in poverty in rural areas.

Before the earthquakes struck, USAID/El Salvador was also implementing another natural disaster program dedicated to Hurricane Mitch recovery efforts. The activity was successfully concluded ahead of schedule, resulting in an impressive list of achievements in the areas of economic reactivation, basic community infrastructure (roads, electrical lines, wells, potable water systems, latrines, houses, and schools), and environmental management and disaster preparedness interventions.

The successes of the Mission’s strategy are a product of close collaboration with the Government of El Salvador, local and international NGOs, other donors and, of course, the communities and people of El Salvador.

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