Development Models in Diachronic Perspective – Master’s Degree Sustainable Territorial Development 2018/2020

Natalia Beatriz Quiñónez Portillo

Discussing the development model behind the FOMILENIO II Program in El Salvador

In the everlasting debate of how development can be achieved in “underdeveloped” societies nowadays, the
neoliberal premise of alleviating poverty by attaining economic growth remains strong. Under such claims, it is
argued that said countries are lacking both public capacities and private incentives for the necessary
investments to be done, either in job creation, economic dynamization or infrastructure works. This is when
programs such as FOMILENIO in El Salvador are outlined as one of the (apparently) few ways out of the poverty
trap.

The neoliberal paradigm of development in El Salvador has been, nevertheless, influencing policy-making and
State decisions more than a decade before FOMILENIO came into the picture. Policies such as the privatization
of certain services (e.g. banking, trade, land distribution, pension administration, communications) and the
liberalization of labor and financial markets, among other measures, derived from the guidelines of the
Structural Readjustment and Economic Stabilization Programs that were promoted by the World Bank back
then (SAPRIN, 2000). In 2006, as a very convenient coincidence, the Dominican Republic-Central America Free
Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) was also signed between the US, Dominican Republic and five of the Central
American countries, El Salvador included. In order to contextualize best at what point of neoliberalism’s
development in El Salvador is when FOMILENIO programs appear, it becomes pertinent to recall the impact of
the global financial crisis that took place in 2008.

Figure 1 depicts three graphs that show the evolution of some key indicators concerning the Salvadoran
economy’s performance and public investment levels during the past two decades1: after a certain period of
relative economic stagnation, financial markets within a neoliberal model in critical conditions collapsed. On
2009, the GDP growth rate was negative (-3 %) and the level of public expenditure tripled. This was mainly due
to the implementation of an Anti-Crisis Plan that contained several welfare-oriented programs that helped El
Salvador to cope and mitigate somehow the aftermath of the crisis (STPP, 2009). This is reflected in a relative
reduction of poverty levels to a third of the total population, as well as in the recovery of the annual growth

1
It was eventually uncovered that the higher growth rate that the GDP shows during the 2004 – 2009 period was a case
of data manipulation by the governmental administration at that time: the real GDP figures were much lower and official
databases have not still been amended (El Faro, September 2016).
rate and the gradual reduction of fiscal deficit. Before this scenario, FOMILENIO programs emerged as part of
the solution to a neoliberal crisis that forced the Government to resort back to neoliberal economic
development premises, in order to increase its foreign indebtment levels and finance itself, even beyond fiscal
sustainability. Now, the Salvadoran State is struggling with a highly politicized “peak” in its fiscal crisis that is
putting at risk a series of measures currently avoiding thousands of households to go below the official poverty
line.

Figure 1. Graphic evolution of El Salvador’s GDP, poverty levels and fiscal deficit evolution, from 2000 to 2017.

GDP annual growth rate (%), 2000 - 2016 Poverty levels (%), 2007 - 2017
5,0% 45
4,0%
40
3,0%
2,0% 35
1,0%
30
0,0%
-1,0% 25
-2,0%
20
-3,0%
-4,0%

GDP growth rate (per year) % of households in poverty over total

Fiscal deficit (USD$ mill.), 2000 - 2017

0
-200
-400
-600
-800
-1000
-1200
-1400

Superavit/Deficit

Sources: El Salvador’s Central Reserve Bank (2018) and World Bank (2018).

Why do FOMILENIO funding compacts keep thriving in the official discourse, if its markedly neoliberal proposal
for development have already proved incapable of reducing poverty by themselves? How is the market
liberalization narrative still a ‘trend’ in policy-making when its inability to subsist, without strong palliative
interventions carried out by a far-too-weak State, is more than evident than ever? As a very exemplary case of
how renewed versions of neoliberalism continue to shape development models being undertaken in the Global
South, the present essay intends to explore FOMILENIO II’s social, environmental and economic implications, in
order to analyze how much it can contribute to more sustainable horizons of development. Finally, additional
elements will be shared with the purpose of discussing further alternate perspectives on development; ones
that help put a contrast and motivate local and national transitions into post-neoliberal societies.

What is FOMILENIO and where does it come from: historical background and core premises of the Program

The FOMILENIO Programs were born in 2006, after a series of negotiations between the Government of the
United States and El Salvador resulted in the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) deciding to support the
first compact for FOMILENIO I. Both compacts have been assessed by the joint interests of American political
and economic elites represented in MCC, an independent US foreign aid agency established in 2004 by the US
Congress. Its main goal is to fight against global poverty by channeling foreign assistance that focuses on
promoting economic growth and strengthening institutions in partner countries (mostly ‘underdeveloped’) all
over the world2, so that they can attain more prosperous economies, socio-political stability and fight poverty.

The kind of grants they provide for are 5-year long investment compacts and smaller amounts allocated for
policy and institutional reforms, all subject to the compliance of certain eligibility criteria: applicant
governments must demonstrate their political willingness to ensure transparency and democracy in
governance, economic freedom that enables growth trends led by the private sector, and public investments
that benefit citizens. In this case, FOMILENIO has provided for a set of two investment compacts proposed by
the Government of El Salvador and approved by the MCC, whose role in deciding how US aid funds are assigned,
executed and evaluated is guided towards “enhancing American interests” (MCC, 2018), but from a very specific
sector. MCC is systematically led by a directive board where the US Secretaries of State and Treasury, the
Administration of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and an equal representation
of the private sector (mainly from the tradable sector) discuss how to deliver their funds. Alongside, in its aim
of safeguarding their “active engagement and collaboration with the private sector” (ibid.), MCC relies on the
support of an Advisory Council comprised only of representatives of American and regional private actors, such
as companies, law firms, banks and think tanks.

The first FOMILENIO compact, approved as a non-refundable financing agreement between MCC and the
Government of El Salvador in 2006, allocated around USD$461 million to be invested in the Northern Area (NA)
of the country. Comprising a total of 94 municipalities, according to official data, the NA is home to the 14 % of
the country’s total population and concentrates. Despite concentrating large areas of natural resources, out of
the 100 municipalities categorized as being in extreme and high levels of poverty nationwide, 52 are in the NA

2
MCC has funded more than USD$13 billion in over 47 countries from Africa, Latin America, Asia, Middle East and Eastern
Europe.
(FISDL, 2005). It is also characterized by its larger proportion of rural population (70 %), in comparison to the
national average, and important migration flows (Cárdenas et al., 2012). The most important component was
Connectivity, which concentrated over 50 % of the total funds to be invested, in contrast to Human (21 %) and
Productive Development (19 %)3.

Several results obtained by FOMILENIO I are not negligible: until 2012, it managed to expand the introduction
of infrastructure for basic services and better roads, improving access to clean water, sanitation, electricity and
connection with urban nodes for more than 11,000 people living in rural communities (STPP, 2017). According
to MCC’s estimations of an average Economic Rate of Return (ERR) for all FOMILENIO I projects, it is expected
that intervened households increase their income levels, at least, in a 15.1 % over 20 years (MCC, ibid.).

Nevertheless, Cárdenas et al. (ibid.) have highlighted that larger proportions of FOMILENIO investments were
allocated in municipalities with lower rates of rural population. This has deepened social and economic
inequalities between urban and rural territories. Multiple entrepreneurship cases undertaken by low-income
households who benefitted from the productive development component, through loan acquisition and
financial assistance, have already failed: most of their productive assets but also means of life, such as houses
and other properties, have been confiscated after becoming incapable of paying back their loans (Villalta, 2016).
Regarding the construction of the Northern Transnational Highway, the most important activity of this compact,
the local communities’ considerations and counterproposals were disregarded, which resulted in various
episodes of tense conflict. In Guarjila, Chalatenango, local population opposed strongly to the highway
construction because it partitioned their territory in half, putting at risk their mobility and access to public
services (UCA, 2012). Other communities who also opposed to the project demanded their own
counterproposals to be considered for funding, but they were all unheard. Conflicts heated up when more
communities increased their awareness on the social and environmental impacts of the megaprojects that
would take place when the highway were constructed: demonstrations against the construction of the
hydroelectric dam El Cimarrón, in Chalatenango, and the Pacific Rim concessions for mining projects in San
Isidro, Cabañas, emphasized strongly on the bias the highway construction had in order to benefit extractivist
projects in said areas. Many of those projects were never started or concluded, thanks to the resistance and
advocacy developed by the local people. In Figure 2, it is possible to visualize how the highway (black line)

3
Its main activities included: (1) the construction of a Northern Transnational Highway; (2) the improvement of basic
services infrastructure (water and sanitation) and (3) social equipment facilities (schools); (4) the introduction of
electrification networks on rural areas, some of them including renewable energy sources (solar panels); (5) technical
assessment and creation of financial services for enhancing small-scale production and business activities; and (6) the
development of scholarship-funded technical and non-formal skills courses that were targeted for both educational staff
and vulnerable populations at risk.
strategically connected various hydroelectric (green dots) and mining megaprojects (red dots), while also
intersecting with important hydrographic points (all over the Lempa River) and unexplored mineral reserves.

Figure 2. Map of intended

hydroelectric and mining
megaprojects in the Northern
Area of El Salvador,
intersecting with the
Northern Transnational
Highway and hydrographic
resources.

Source: El Salvador’s Platform

against Mining.

Despite the multiple challenges FOMILENIO I faced to conclude in due time, the authorities certainly made sure
that some conditions for its continuity were mounted. In 2011, the Partnership for Growth (PFG) Agreement
signed between the US Government and El Salvador’s, to address Salvadoran problems of insecurity and low
productivity levels in the tradable sector, re-instituted economic growth as a priority for aid funding and public
investment (US Embassy in El Salvador, 2011). Framed within said agreement, a second compact for FOMILENIO
was born in 2013, under the objective of promoting the development of logistics infrastructure, public service
facilities and human capital, mainly in the coastline area of El Salvador. Through the implementation of
FOMILENIO II, the Governments of El Salvador and the US aimed to increase the country’s attractiveness for
private investments and, in the long-run, that poverty levels decrease, just like its main predecessor attempted
to do so for the NA.

Given that this compact was promoted by the first governmental administration of the main left-wing party in
the Salvadoran political arena, opposing right-wing parties, historically aligned with the interests of the
wealthiest, most powerful segments of the private sector, exerted far more pressure to have a say on what
would be the new conditions for the FOMILENIO II Program implementation. Notwithstanding its approval by
MCC in 2013, it took the Salvadoran Government at least two more years to comply with all the institutional
and legal reforms the US Government requested before proceeding with the first disbursement (STPP, 2013a;
2013b). A series of legal reforms were discussed and introduced, being the most important one the Public-
Private Partnerships Act, finally approved in 2015. This instrument has paved the path for the private sector to
leverage its investments’ profit rates through the strategic allocation of public resources in prioritized economic
sectors for growth. It was carefully revised and promoted by the National Council for Growth, a high-level
discussion and coordination platform created by initiative of the US Embassy, for introducing the private sector
directly into the process of defining the rules of a game where FOMILENIO II was meant to be the first move.
This Council ended up scrutinizing and availing all legal reforms that had to be carried out before FOMILENIO II
could start its implementation in September 2015.

Core components of FOMILENIO II: what has been done and foreseen implications

The second compact of FOMILENIO relies on a total of USD$277 million donated by the US Government and a
counterpart of USD$88 million by the Salvadoran Government, for a total of USD$365 to be mainly allocated in
the country’s coastline area (FOMILENIO II, 2018a). The total area of intervention is comprised of 75
municipalities where the a 26 % of the population lives. Its main three components do not differ much from the
ones of the first compact, except for the proportion of the total funds each one will get: while the improvement
of (1) Logistics Infrastructure captured again a greater part of the funds (34 %), the amount to be invested in
the strengthening of (2) Human Capital (31 %) and the betterment of (3) Investment Climate (25 %) are not too
far behind. Also, as an innovative approach, FOMILENIO II claims to promote “dialogue and citizen participation”
for guaranteeing an adequate management of the project’s social and environmental impacts.

The new components of the project, in this case, intend (1) to keep amplifying and improving the quality of road
infrastructure that connects major logistical assets and infrastructure of the area, such as the International
Airport “Monseñor Óscar Arnulfo Romero” and the border crossing point El Amatillo, in La Unión, which
connects with the Southern part of Honduras; (2) to increase low productivity of labor through technical
specialization trainings and the implementation of an Integrated System of Full-Time Inclusive Schools (SI-EITP),
which implies that a territorial reconfiguration of educational (human and material) resources will take place,
along with an extension on the hours for educational services to be offered; and (3) to reduce bureaucratic
constraints for increasing the attractiveness of the area for private investors, who have now the opportunity of
getting the public sector to allocate complementary resources, mainly for the education and training of future
employees, in their investment projects.

From September 2015 until now, FOMILENIO II has had over three years of implementation, but has only been
able to compromise 40 % of the total funds. In terms of Human Capital, progress has been attained in the
construction and equipment of 12 public schools, the installation of new technical specialization trainings at the
public system, integrated at the High School curriculum level (e.g. Tourism, Logistics, Aeronautics, among
others), and the SI-EITP implementation in more than 340 public schools. Regarding the Logistics Infrastructure
project, the expansion of the highway connecting the International Airport with major urban areas is already in
process. For this project to start, however, at least 50 low-income households and land smallholders have had
to be relocated elsewhere.

The Investment Climate project might be the one with a greater level of progress: at least 22 Public-Private
Partnership (PPP) projects have been identified and approved for funding, totalizing around USD$234 million of
FOMILENIO II funds to be invested, to which the public sector’s contribution will be of a 19 %. A large proportion
of these funds would be allocated in agroindustrial (45 %), energy production (28 %) and tourism development
(15 %) PPP projects. Up to this date, five of them have already been signed for disbursements to be effective
and put in place, all related to the development of aeronautics maintenance services, higher security standards
throughout the road infrastructure connecting the Metropolitan Area of San Salvador (AMSS) with the La Paz
coastline area, logistics infrastructure in El Amatillo border crossing point and tourism investments in the El
Zonte coastline area. Also, a series of multi-sectorial bodies within the FOMILENIO II operational framework
have been created, with an equal participation of the public and private sector: their main objectives are to
speed up institutional procedures for private investments to flow as unobstructed as possible by public sector
bureaucracy. They have also been in charge of revising and advocating for legal reforms regarding simplification
of regulations for private investments, on a national level, such as the Procedure Streamlining for the
Construction Sector Bill, still in process of getting approval of the Legislative Congress. Figure 3 depicts a map
of El Salvador’s areas that have been, to this date, projected for FOMILENIO II investments:

Figure 3. Map of projected FOMILENIO II investments, at the end of 2018.

Source: FOMILENIO II web portal.

Over the course of this 5-year program, there is no doubt that a series of public investments (construction of
schools, training programs for job applications) will generate almost immediate, improved living conditions for
the population currently inhabiting the areas of intervention. However, how much will these investments will
be allocated in benefit of the most impoverished populations in the area? Could the benefits that the population
will receive from the program be equaled to the ones private investors will surely obtain? Within a context of
profound liberalization of the labor market, higher flexibilization of institutional procedures for private
investments to take place and prioritization of private investment allocation in areas that already concentrate
certain attractiveness level because of their natural or infrastructural assets, valuable in terms of their
exploitation potential, what is most probable is that investments prosper at the expense of higher socio-
economic inequalities and environmental degradation deepening in the territories intervened. As it happened
already with the first FOMILENIO compact.

At this point, it becomes relevant to outline some possible implications from the program’s implementation, to
elaborate more on its long-term impacts which, in most cases, tend to incline the balance in benefit of the
private investing sector:

 For the amplification of road infrastructure as part of the Logistics Infrastructure project, population living
on the sides, mostly living in poverty conditions and/or land tenure irregularity, FOMILENIO has been
offering them the alternative of being relocated and resettled in areas far more distant from the ones
intervened. While housing conditions have apparently improved for relocated families, they have also been
uprooted from the territories where most of their social and economic connections were already
established. It should be foreseen that, with the implementation of forthcoming projects in areas also
populated by households in similar conditions, same processes of uprooting, relocation and even
gentrification might occur. Private investors have already arrived at some tourism-intensive parts of the
coastline (El Zonte, for example) and started to purchase land, therefore provoking price speculation to
increase and land ownership to concentrate in fewer hands, increasing the costs of living in the area and
triggering touristification (gentrification originated in tourism) dynamics that eventually displace the ones
living in extreme poverty from the “developing” areas or increase economic disparity indicators.
 One of the most valuable areas of El Salvador’s coastline is the Jiquilisco Bay, a Ramsar declared site for
being a highly rich mangrove area, would also be threatened by intensive mass tourism development that
has been foreseen in the area. Projected investments are considering the construction of more than 300
hotels that aim to attract an influx of 3 million tourists per year (EJ Atlas, 2015). Most of local inhabitants
make a living out of artisanal fishing and their livelihoods are currently helping to maintain the biodiversity
 and life of the Bay’s mangrove ecosystem safe (FOEI, 2013). Local organizations have emphasized on the
potential risks that the area would incur in if said projects were to be carried out: a higher process of socio-
economic precarization of the living conditions for the local people, as well as irreversible impacts on the
local environment, whether corresponding environmental studies are undertaken or not, would most
possibly take place.
 Social and grassroots organizations working together with the local communities of the intervention area,
specifically from the Bajo Lempa Area, have constantly emphasized on the same kind of threats, but also
highlighted the strong relationship between development of touristic infrastructure and organized crime,
such as money laundering from drug trafficking activities and tax evasion, in the area (Truchi, 2016). Within
highly disputed territories by gang control, such as the ones located in the coastline areas with a higher
rate of urban population and infrastructure, insecurity levels for the most vulnerable ones would most
definitely increase. Said organizations have also stressed on the fact that dialoguing and participatory
processes carried out by the national authorities, in order to define prioritized actions for FOMILENIO II,
have been reduced to one-way consultation dynamics. They participated and shared at least 10 alternative
proposals of economic development for the localities on various FOMILENIO II local dialogue spaces since
2014, only to face rejection, since it is MCC deciding on what actions will be financed by FOMILENIO II and
which not (Truchi, 2018).

In an even longer term, an overview of how FOMILENIO actions connect with other policies and institutional
instruments, at a national and transnational level, could also help to visualize best other dimensions of the
possible scenarios described before. Salvadoran population living in different conditions of poverty and social
vulnerability, be it extreme or not, tend to “decide” to migrate internally or to North America (mainly, US and
Mexico) in the search of a better quality of life for them and their families. During the last decade, migration
flows have increased enormously, over 5 times between 2010 and 2013, with the United States being the
destination for at least 77 % of migrants (SICREMI-OEA, 2015). The rising influence of factors that compel people
to flee the country, such as violence exerted by gangs or police and military institutions, has played a key role
in shaping an even more critical situation: a phenomenon of “forced migration”. Between 2013 and 2014, a
massive influx of child and young migrants tried to arrive to the US unaccompanied, immediately becoming a
migration crisis widely spread by the media. Minors were fleeing their countries of origin, mainly those of the
Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador), to avoid becoming victims of insecurity and violence
(Silva, 2014).

As a response, the Governments of the Northern Triangle countries decided to elaborate a cooperation and aid
funding proposal before the US Government and other international financing institutions, such as the Inter-
American Development Bank (IADB) and the World Bank (WB): the Alliance for Prosperity Plan. This multiannual
strategy is meant to guide policy-making to fight the challenges faced by the region’s Governments in order to
“develop opportunities for their people, improve public safety, enhance access to the legal system, and
strengthen institutions”. It resembles some of FOMILENIO’s goals and strategies but concerning a much wider
geographical area that implies tri-national institutional coordination, therefore paving the way for carrying out
deeper changes into how the three countries are tackling their own public safety issues. Why is it important to
highlight this, though? Considering that the United States’ foreign policy towards Central America –specially,
the Northern Triangle– has historically aimed to exert political and military control over the territory and its
boundaries, the fact that this Plan is directing around 60 % of its budget to enhance security through “by
focusing on professionalizing police and military institutions” is not surprising and certainly worrying (COHA,
2016). According to the US Department of State (2018), the main outcomes of this Plan’s security component
are to “combat transnational criminal organizations, stem drug trafficking, enhance citizen security, reduce
gang violence, strengthen borders, and deter human smuggling and trafficking”. Four years later, society’s
perception on insecurity has worsened, while indicators regarding gang violence and territorial control since
being faced more strongly by police and military forces have intensified and provoked El Salvador’s homicide
rate to increase and a series of migration and forced displacement crises to keep ensuing.

Now, what is the point on highlighting some linkages between different US foreign aid plans being implemented
in El Salvador, despite the differences on the geographical and political levels? How relevant it is to analyze their
implications on aspects that go beyond economic growth rates? One important reason would be to shed some
light on how the implementation of a neoliberal model, by focusing on increasing economic growth as its main
goal, has subsisted at the expense of weakening financial capability of the public sector and the legitimacy of
its institutions, thus making them more dependent to external funding, a type of aid intrinsically conditioned to
the leverage of a neoliberal economic structure on State resources. Development programs such as FOMILENIO
derive from these premises; ones stemming from a neoliberal model in a succession of crisis since 2008. For a
minority class (national and transnational capital owners), this model has only been able to maintain their
increasing rate of profit through a crisis4 by strengthening a policy framework that already favors big private
investors’ interests in a strongly de-regulated economy, under the rule of free-market. In consequence, the
social and economic conditions of the population’s majority have only deteriorated progressively, hence the
increase on criminality rates and gang violence5. In order to keep social unrest from escalating or transforming

4
A study carried out by OXFAM El Salvador (2015) found out that, in 2015, only 160 people in the country concentrated
an amount of wealth equivalent to the 87 % of that year’s GDP.
5
According to World Bank (2018) data, the behavior of the homicide rate in El Salvador from the 90s decade onwards
shows its highest peaks (above 70 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants) during the first half of the nineties and, again, from
2009 until recent years. In 2015, it rose up to recent post-war levels: above 100 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
into an ‘obstacle for economic growth’, the entire apparatus of the State had to be put in function to exert
social control, one of the last remaining roles that neoliberalism had left in its hands –and just partially, due to
a higher participation of the private sector in providing for security services to a now very well stablished
demand6. It is at this point where US’ financial and political intervention comes in: to support actions of social
control that align to their economic interests, to reaffirm a position of geopolitical power.

Re-thinking mainstream development paradigms: between post-neoliberal and alternative perspectives

Coming from the neoliberal paradigm that claims economic growth is the consequence of better conditions for
private capital to prosper, it can be summarized that the most important stake of FOMILENIO II is to put all the
State’s institutional resources possible for improving the conditions under which only the private investors will
be able to keep accumulating profit and wealth. Conditions such as modifications to the legal framework, a
higher level of indebtment and extraordinary allocation of public budget have been the unnegotiable demands
of the US Government and its foreign aid agency in order to provide for such a considerable compact of funding.
Documentation on the progress of the program’s implementation can already illustrate how improvement of
educational facilities, water treatment and sanitation systems and road infrastructure connecting communities
previously excluded from cities and other important poles of development has already started to benefit many
families. But the structural costs of this type of programs in the long-term, from both an economic and social
point of view, are still debatable.

Which other possible paths can be transitable for El Salvador then, considering how historically strong are its
economic and political linkages with the US Government, all for the benefit of a ruling capitalist class that is
more transnationally de-localized than ever? From the perspective of transitioning towards a post-neoliberal
paradigm of human development, one that aims to overcome the consequences of neoliberalism as well as to
counteract gradually its foundations; to start a path of uprooting neoliberalism from El Salvador’s economy and
society, in order to direct all efforts towards structuring and restructuring its entire policy and institutional
framework and walk towards social justice and human development (Duarte et al., 2015). At the center of these
theoretical constructions, still awaiting further discussion in order to be put into practice, would be the
reproduction of life, as the most important priority of a new development model. This conception of life would
comprise not only human life but a more holistic understanding of it; one that contemplates at its core the
establishment of balanced interactions of humans with nature as a living entity, not a commodity or a stock of
resources. Under a reproductive rationality, as Hinkelammert & Mora (2008) put it, cost-benefit rationale is put

6
Between 2000 and 2014, private security companies in El Salvador have employed 18 % to 20 % more people than the
National Civil Police (PNC) corps, according to a study carried out by Gómez Hecht (2014).
aside when it comes to define how the society, the State and market will organize and satisfy all necessary
conditions for all life to reproduce plentifully, avoiding unnecessary overexploitation, degradation or destruction
of life in the process.

At the same time, Montoya (2009) proposed a series of theoretical reflections on the historical imperative of
transforming the economy, both at a local and national / regional level, into a mode of production based on the
practice of solidarity, at the core of social production relations between economic agents. This current of
economic thought assessed and inspired diverse initiatives of solidarity economics undertaken in El Salvador
that provide with interesting examples of how other economy is possible, even before the kind of adversities
that have been mentioned before. Essentially, the theoretical and political proposal of solidarity economics
advocates for a development model that is conceived and constructed as an alternative for the impoverished,
working-class majorities. In this sense, such a model would rely in the people’s own organization of collective
efforts and work, all interrelated by the practice of solidarity, equity and inclusiveness. The driving force of
better living standards and the possibility of reproducing all kinds of life altogether, in a much more sustainable
way, according to these premises, is the people and their respectful relationship with the environment.

For now, more down-to-earth, policy-oriented discussions on how to bring elements from such alternative
paradigms of development remain still to be heard more closely, so that they can turn into real structured
processes of social, environmental and economic transformation. It should not be overseen, nevertheless, that
several concepts, theories and even practices from bottom-up initiatives are already there; they exist and will
not cease their struggle on expanding a shift on how the neoliberal model conceives development: from
economic growth to the reproduction of life.

Reference list

 Alvarado, J. Tres gobiernos nos han mentido: El Salvador es $3,722 millones más pobre. September 5, 2016. El Faro.
Retrieved from: https://elfaro.net/es/201609/el_salvador/19107/Tres-gobiernos-nos-han-mentido-El-Salvador-es-
$3722-millones-m%C3%A1s-pobre.htm
 BCR (2018) Base de datos económico-financiera. Retrieved from:
https://www.bcr.gob.sv/bcrsite/?cat=1000&title=Base%20de%20Datos%20Econ%C3%B3mica-Financiera
 Cárdenas, G.; Olmedo, R.; Salguero, J. (2012) Aproximación a las condicionantes de FOMILENIO para el desarrollo rural
de la Zona Norte de El Salvador. Undergraduate dissertation, Central American University “José Simeón Cañas”.
 COHA. The Alliance for Prosperity Plan: A Failed Effort for Stemming Migration. August 2, 2016. Retrieved from:
http://www.coha.org/the-alliance-for-prosperity-plan-a-failed-effort-for-stemming-migration/
 Duarte, L.; Himede, M.; Mata, N. (2015) El paradigma de desarrollo humano frente al neoliberalismo: análisis de
impacto y transición postneoliberal. Undergraduate dissertation, Central American University “José Simeón Cañas”.
 EJ Atlas. Coastal megaprojects in Bahia de Jiquilisco, El Salvador. December 16, 2015. Retrieved from:
https://ejatlas.org/conflict/coastal-zone-megaprojects-el-salvador
 FISDL (2005) Mapa de Pobreza de El Salvador. Retrieved from: http://www.fisdl.gob.sv/temas-543/mapa-de-pobreza
 FOEI (2013) World Environment Day: Tourism projects threaten mangroves and communities in El Salvador. News
Section. Retrieved from: https://www.foei.org/news/world-environment-day-tourism-projects-threaten-mangroves-
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