Millennium Challenge in El Salvador
During the presidency of Tony Saca, El Salvador qualified for more than $400 million from the US Millennium Challenge Account. The funds are designated for poverty reduction in the northern zone in the country. Probably the most prominent part of the Millennium Account project is a highway improvement project running east-west through that zone:
According to an article in the Nica Times, the Millennium project will continue in El Salvador under Funes:
The overall project will be to rehabilitate, expand, rebuild and maintain 648km of highway, 331km of which correspond to the Longitudinal del Norte highway, which runs from the country's La Virgen border with Guatemala to its La Concepción border with Honduras, plus a total of 317km of intersecting routes.
The works will be funded with US$233mn of a US$461mn donation from the US Millennium Challenge Corporation, approved for the country in June 2006 to reduce poverty in the northern zone.
According to an article in the Nica Times, the Millennium project will continue in El Salvador under Funes:
The MCC compact with El Salvador focuses on education, productive development, water and sanitation services and road infrastructure. To date, $25.6 million has been spent and an additional $122 million contracted, leaving the majority of the compact yet to be executed over the next three years.
José Angel Quirós, executive director of FOMILENIO, says the MCC project has been a success in El Salvador because it's viewed as an integral part of the country's national development plan, rather than a political initiative by the U.S. or the Saca administration.
The biggest concern with the project, he said, is “how can we make sure this has the biggest impact possible on the zone?”
Quirós adds that he thinks the government should have an even grander vision of the project, viewing it not only as development for the Northern Zone but as a way of converting the marginalized region into a “motor of development for the rest of the country.”
Though he admits there is some uncertainty involved with the transition to the Funes government, Quirós says “thank God everything that has been said so far indicates there is going to be a continuation of the program.”
Comments
As the late Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero said of the Salvadorn junta's agrarian reform: Reformas tenidas de sangre, de nada sirven." Reforms tinged with blood work for nothing.
Do you have the guts to say that to Francisco Avelar Ramirez, a Salvadoran journalist who worked for the Independent News Agency and who was captured by the National Police and tortured by them? Mr. Avelar Ramirez is still looking for justice, as the "Restorative Justice" post on this blog of April, 25th, points out.
Only the heartless would refuse Mr. Avelar Ramirez justice, not to mention appropriate medical care. I presume that includes you above Mr. Anonymous.
Those who fail to remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.
El Salvador's land issue debate is ongoing.
Imagine those campesinos with the gall to ask for enough land to grow crops to feed their families. Haven't they heard of Milton Friedman..or John Locke? Land for growing food for internal consumption is so yesterday; what's needed is to sell crops to the highest bidder with hard currency. Don't those pesky campesinos know there's no free luch; and even if there's no lunch, it's there fault too!
Shame on you!
In our discussion, no offense intended, and thanks for your forbearance.
That might mean their impunity might be stripped and they'll have to sell their fancy wheels to pay civil damages after being found guilty in a court of law for commiting crimes against humanity.
Or, as a criminal matter, they might do jail time, which would be even more fitting.
All those former US military advisors to the Salvadoran FAES are whining because they don't like the outcome of the democratic process. Sorry buddies, the Salvadoran people have learned how to defend themselves against those who defy the people's will by foreign inspired coups or otherwise, and it ain't pretty.
Socially resentful ARENA has tried to privatize the Salvadoran health care system, so as to make it only available to the wealthy and the powerful and their death-squad blowhard henchmen.
How about a health care policy that would embrace all of the Salvadoran people, not just the privileged few? Of course that wouldn't be like the good ol' USA, so the ARENAs, the death-squad blowhards, and their gringo supporters say no.
Heck, dude, all these years salivating, greedy nincompoops have been draining every single penny from foreign aid for their own benefit. This isn't anything new. Poor military men post-war became rich "empresarios" after taking the dough out of the barracks, and one ARENA gov. successive of the other got you the same kind of filth. Foreign loans, etc. were subjected of being absorbed by politicians and private (entrepreneurs). So with FMLN, things might not change, but stop being such an ideologue and calling them monkeys, because anyone that is willing to do anything for money is nothing but a capitalist monkey, so if they do steal they'll simply be among the "new rich" of El Salvador.
Personally, I think that the MA should have been frozen over MONTHS ago, and every single penny submitted to review, cuz El Salvador is known for over-pricing everything, especially infrastructure projects, so wouldn't surprise me if someone over the chain of commands and executions on the MA project has been siphoning tax payer dollars out of you yanks.
And about nut cases in El Salvador, hell yeah, man, we have them. The vast majority of them are the same kind of folks that for the past decades didn't see investing on national education as wise, insisted on keeping El Salvador as a banana republic for a cheap labor force, but NOW, that FMLN won the elections... suddenly become great statesmen, demanding a "state building plan", because El Salvador had been operating without one.
1) I am not blaming any foreign forces for the perils of El Salvador, though only an idiot would deny that foreign intervention has somehow "shaped" El Salvador.
2) I do say that education is paramount to help a country's population advance. What I am telling you, bucko, that up until even NOW 2009, the oligarchs DID NOT see EDUCATION as a necessary/beneficial investment. For all they cared, El Salvador's population was to be a low-skilled cheap workforce. They even tried to shape El Salvador from a coffee exporter, to a SWEATSHOP FACTORY (a blow back, because those asses didn't perceive that sweatshops would jump to Nicaragua/China to get even cheaper labor!). Hopefully with the obstacle of ARENA out of the picture, this point of view WILL change. Suffice to say that without education, you cannot hope to improve your culture-society, I understand that education is the backbone of every self-respecting society.
3)El Salvador moves a lot of money, international aid, loans, etc. But truth is, that one of the reasons why El Salvador is sluggish into developing isn't necessarily because it "makes optimum" use of its resources, are you bucko, seem to imply, but because THERE IS A SEVERE MISMANAGEMENT of those resources, massive tax evasion, etc. things that have direct impact on the nations development. Furthermore, as I told you on my previous post, El Salvador post-war did not function with a "state developing" plan, 30 years UNDER the SAME PARTY, have lead to 4 apparently unrelated gov. terms, each squandering money into separate "projects" rather than one continuing the projects of the other (i.e. Cristiani engaging on education projects, Sol and up continuing said projects).
4) I could really pound your head to the dust, but it isn't worth my time. Suffice to say that: FMLN won, and suddenly the picture of a robust economy shifted back to reality, showing that due to mismanagement, there is a severe deficit encompassing every sphere of Salvadoran society: health, education, public security. An example of such mismanagement, is a 30 MILLION DOLLAR LOAN to BUILD A NEW HOSPITAL DE MATERNIDAD, where HALF of it has already been "spent" without authorities being able to clarify WHERE DID THAT MONEY GO. And dude, while this obviously wouldn't take us from a Yugo to a Rolse Royce, as you seem to imply, it sure as hell would've lead from a Yugo turning into a Toyota.
Btw, Costa Rica has to thank Social Democrat Figueres, who had nation building plans in mind to be what it is. We on the other hand, had to stay with a bunch of retrograde elites that until now have been running the show (which btw, killed any semblance of Figueres El Salvador had, like statesman Enrique Alvarez). Thankfully, we kicked them out of power through the ballots.
On a final note, give my regards to those "Salvadorans" that do those dirty menial tasks that apparently you are either to lazy or incompetent to perform. Surely they'll put that money into good use, like investing on their children's education. Oh, and by the way, you must suffer from multiple-personality disorder, because I am sure that you are the nutcase that was engaging on a dialogue with a "little old church lady" (in other words YOU), on and on for more than 10 posts. You need help, man. Adios.
Trivia:
El Salvador used to produce alternative oils from sugar cane, called Gasol around the late 80s, early 90s. But no success, I guess we were to ahead of the times.
Banana Republic, my oh-take-it-so-literally friend, can also be applied to an unstable, corrupt, country that has been largely dependent on a single or few cash crops, and is governed mostly by a select few who shape "policies" to suit their interest: elites/oligarchies. So, using this definition, the term BANANA REPUBLIC does apply to El Salvador. So, please stop typing any more nonsense... Or do start thinking before you do.
Yes, so I've heard. Money laundering and moving drugs along the smuggle route are the biggies aren't the. Oh, and peddling arms to the Columbian FARC too, I suppose you get your drugs that way. One of the big wigs in your government was all over the computer of some big shot FARC guerrilla they captured or killed, or was it that he turned himself in. But the guy spilled the beans and your big shot was exposed. Now wasn't that just too bad. These guys are nothing but tortilla bandits.
The Panamerican Health Organization of the World Health Organization, describes in a 2001 report El Salvador's Health Care infrastructure this way:
"Organization of the Health Sector
Institutional Organization
The public subsector is composed of social security, the services of the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare, and other health sector services. The Ministry has a national network of 427 services, broken down as follows: 16 hospitals, 14 health centers, 313 health units, 32 health posts, 11 community posts, 8 dispensaries, and 33 rural nutrition centers. As far as hospital beds are concerned, the Ministry has 2,964 and ISSS has 1,583.
Eighty percent of the total national population is assigned to the Ministry, although actual coverage is lower than that."
Here is some more data from the United Nations National Development Plan Report for El Salvador--2001:
http://www.paho.org/english/sha/prflels.htm
consultaron a un centro de salud,
según razones por las que no consultaron 1999
(En porcentajes)
Condición
de pobreza
No fue
necesario
Falta de
dinero
Establecimiento
lejano, no tiene
medicinas, falta de
atención
No confía, prefiere
curarse con
remedios caseros,
otro
TOTAL 33 47 3 17
Pobre 26 54 4 17
Extremo 23 62 5 11
Relativo 30 44 2 24
No Pobre 46 36 1 17
Fuente: Encuesta de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples, 1999. DIGESTYC,
Ministerio de Economía.
Otro indicador de la baja calidad o falta de acceso a servicios públicos de salud
es la atención en instituciones no públicas, a las cuales acudió el 25 por ciento
de los que demandaron servicios de salud (Cuadro 5.25). Llama la atención que
entre la población en pobreza, el 12 por ciento acudió a centros privados, lo cual
significa que para atender su necesidad de servicios de salud, esas personas
tuvieron que dejar de satisfacer otras necesidades básicas.
Cuadro 5.25
Demanda de servicios de salud: centro que consultaron 1999
(En porcentajes)
Centros del
MSPAS
Centros
del ISSS
Centros
privados
ONG y
otros
TOTAL 62 13 22 3
Pobre 80 5 12 3
Extremo 86 3 10 2
Relativo 77 6 14 3
No Pobre 45 21 31 3
Fuente: Encuesta de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples, 1999. DIGESTYC,
Ministerio de Economía.
http://www.pnud.org.sv/2007/idh/content/blogcategory/0/95/
Apologies for the table's skewed appearance.
What this data from PAHO and the UN's PNUD indicate is that adequate health care is only available through private facilities, not to the public at large, and especially not avaialble to those classifed as living in relative or extreme poverty.
That Millinium Challenge money should be funneled through organizations such as Partner's In Health (www.pih.org) whose commitment is "the preferential option for the poor", to bring El Salvador's inadequate health care system up to the level of say, Costa Rica's--or much better.
http://healthcare-economist.com/2006/04/06/healthcare-in-el-salvador-iv-healthcare-system/
"Healthcare in El Salvador IV: Healthcare system
April 6, 2006 in El Salvador, Health Care in Developing Nations
In El Salvador, one finds two parallel health care system. The first uses state-of-the-art technology, qualified doctors, and physician spend ample time with patients. The second employs third world technology, treats severe illnesses superficially, and doctors are overworked. Which of these systems is run by the government? Which of these systems serves the poor?
As you probably guessed, the first healthcare system described above involves doctors in private practice with a fee for service (FFS) provider payment system. Using the private physician and medical facilities is expensive; only the wealthy can afford these procedures. The poor are relegated to using the free government hospitals and clinics. These facilities do an adequate job of providing immunizations, prenatal care and educational material, but do not have the funds or the staffing to perform surgical procedures which in the U.S. would be considered routine. Many Salvadorans I spoke with complained that doctors in the public hospitals treat all serious diseases the same: they give patients an aspirin and tell them to grin and bear it since surgery or other complicated procedures are not available.
Also, one notes a distinct difference between urban and rural clinics serving the poor. Both provide only the most basic of services, however, rural physicians do have more time to spend with patients due to the lower population density. One physician in the village of Isla de Mendez told me he only saw about 25-30 patients per day and about half of these were educational prenatal visits. The residents of Isla de Mendez, however, do not have access to medical care on weekends because the physician returns to his home three hours away in the city of San Miguel. In an urban clinic, patient volume is much higher and wait times of many hours is common, but physicians are available on weekends for emergencies.
The central government also employs promotores, workers who visit villages (such as Ciudad Romero) who do not have a clinic and educate the population about public health risks. Unfortunately, it seems that the promotores are not very effective since the villagers do not hold these workers in as high esteem as physicians. Further, since the promotores travel from village to village, they rarely establish a strong bond with the community to make sure that the educational information they impart is implemented."
One might infer from this account that El Salvador's health care system is inadequate, and ARENA's attempts to further privatize the system would likely have produced even more inadequate care for most Salvadorans than reported from the above source. With the recently elected administration's new appointees to lead the Health Ministry, hopefully steps will be taken immediately to remedy the intolerable situation facing most Salvadorans in receiving adequate health care.
And Cuba might want to send some doctors to staff some of those underresourced rural health clinics and hospitals.
Do you think the good ol' USA would send doctors for any substantial period of time, other than the militarist flourishes of hospital ships parked briefly off the coast of Acajutla?
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-the-fco/country-profiles/north-central-america/el-salvador?profile=all
"Health
In El Salvador the quality of and access to healthcare are directly tied to income levels. Adequate health care is available to those able to pay the high cost. Health care for the urban and rural poor is limited.
Health services are not readily accessible to a majority of the population. In the more isolated regions of El Salvador, there are almost no physicians. Government clinics often lack adequate personnel, equipment and medicines.
Life expectancy: Male: 67.31 years, female 74.7 years (2004 est.)
Infant mortality rate: 25.93 deaths/1,000 live births (2004 est.)"
Most Salvadorans, those chronically underemployed or unemployed in urban/suburban areas or those who live in the countryside, recieve inadequate medical care, most observers with no ideological ax to grind agree.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/
Cuba, Costa Rica, Mexico at 48, 50, 51 respectively; Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala at 117, 120, 121, respectively;
USA is at # 7 and El Salvador at # 101.
Conclusions, anyone?
Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, at 61, 70, 80, resepectively.
Jeez, and who can disagree with that. It's a known fact that El Salvador is a poor third world country with huge bugetary limitations. I personally would never allow a third world doctor anywhere near me, much less let him/her treat me. I might be crazy, but I ain't dumb. And what do you expect, a free lunch?
Try to live within your means and take responsibility for yourself. The alternative is the two day hike across the Sonoran Desert. Be sure to bring plenty of water.
I guess I'll be a patriotic American today and go shopping.
I'm sure we would if asked. We've done it before and most likely Obama would gladly do it again. Personally, I know a couple of private doctors and dentists who on their own travel to third world countries to help the people there.
One blaring problem with that and with people like you is, that once someone does you do a favor, you want it to become an obligation. You seem to always be looking for excuses and a free lunch. That attitude gets old very fast.
As a real life anecdote, a doctor friend of mine was treating patients in a developing country when someone walks up to him and nonchalantly asks my friend for $25,000.00 dollars, to be a house and a truck. Hard to believe, perhaps. But this is a true story.
I try to bypass the filth without giving it a second thought. Filth can be found anywhere, and I suppose that it's something like poverty. I tell my friends here that if they want to see poverty, real poverty that is, to take a ride down the Mississippi River Delta.
In Latin America, from what I have observed on my many trips, poverty has become a buzz word and a misinterpretation because what one perceives as poverty, another perceives as a traditional way of life. I'll never forget the strength of character and pride of an indian man outside of Antigua, Guatemala. He was impressive. Now, if what we all want is to live in the suburbs and have a couple of cars in the garage, and a McDonald's down by the corner, then you must grab your stuff and walk the walk, the walk across the barren border and make your version of the American Dream become reality for you.
I know that's what you want because you are here and because you are a English speaker. Right? Be honest now.
Does this mean you are suggesting the privitization of medicine. Medicine for profit? There is no doubt that a privately owned clinic will offer the best health care available. After all, they're in it for the money. It's call "Capitalism." But that's not what is needed, we have enough private hospitals and clinics, what we need is Universal Health Care for every citizen. Barack Obama supports that effort and I understand that he's right now working on the details.
I guess the same thing goes and would be true for any country, including El Salvador. Let's see if Cuba can give us some guidelines and help us get on our own two feet so we can take it from there. Cuba has a renown world class medical health system, and conditions there closely resemble conditions in El Salvador. Let's give it a shot, it sure can't hurt.
-To a Marxist-Leninist, a Capitalist in simply a "useful fool."
-To a Capitalist, a Marxist-Leninist is simply a "useless fool."
Questions? Mr. Anonymous.
Listen up, I know these gut growling commies from way back in the Nam where we pounded the zips real good. what they want in Mexico and down there is what they wanted in Nam and everywhere else. They want what the guy they envy so much has. I've never seen a commie who actually works, but to the contrary all they do is bitch about other people and about how life has been so unfair to them. Besides being natural born theives, they have no self respect or shame, and they get really pissed off when someone calls them on it. They should all just stay the hell away from us decent folks up here in the good ole U.S.A.
Never thought pickin' coffee or cuttin' sugar cane was a trade, you semper fi's out there?. Think about it, bucko, next time you look at that killem-all-off-and-let-god-sort-em-out image of yourself in that deep black hole of Java. Quick, toss in a teaspoon full of that sweet-ass stuff!
The following is from La Via Campesina (Campesina translates as farmworker or farmer, bucko) wetsite:
www.viacampesina.org
Read it and start wretching:
"La Via Campesina's struggle for the rights of peasants
Almost half of the people in the world are peasants and small farmers and the food they produce is the backbone of people's life. Agriculture is not just an economic activity, but it also means life, culture and dignity for all of us.
Nonetheless, peasants all over the world have to struggle to defend their right to feed themselves and their communities. Every year, thousands of peasant leaders are being arrested in their effort to maintain land, water and natural resources—the effort to preserve life. Incidents of massacres, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, and political persecution and harassment are common.
Poor rural families, represent 75 % of the people suffering from structural hunger. Illiteracy rates increase in rural areas, health care and public services are vanishing and poverty is raging. Women and children are the most affected and discrimination towards women has put double burden on their shoulders.
The violations of the rights of peasants have risen dramatically with the liberalisation of agriculture that forced farmers to produce for export and to engage in industrial modes of production. International institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) compel peasants and small farmers to follow that path. Over the past decades, peasants have disappeared massively all over the world, and a handful of large transnational corporations (TNCs) have taken control over food production and trade (from seeds producers to supermarket chains). Governments and international institutions have developed policies to support agribusiness and to dismantle peasant's agriculture. Food has been left in the hands of speculators, leading to the current food crisis."
Ever heard of the word justice, those in favor of mass murder in order to continue an exploitative system of agroexport agriculture?
Justice: That's what Salvadorns in their social revolution of the 1970s-1990s, were trying to bring about: justice for those living in El Salvador's countryside in inhuman, immiserated, and impoverished life conditions, under an unsupportable land tenancy system.
Slain Archbishop Oscar Romero recognized this, and he cried out for change--including agrarian reform not stained with blood--but he was gunned down under orders of ARENA party founder Roberto D'Aubuisson.
Apologists for D'Aubuisson, Orlando de Sola, Hans Crist, and top-officers in the FAES hide with great difficulty the moral bankruptcy of their position.
Or perhaps their moral bankruptcy is what they would care to display, content with the view that might makes right?
Hey, ...I think I remember you from a past post, you're that same "John" that to dedicate his life to chasing old military types in their wheel chairs around and around the block. Yeah, I remember now. One question, if all these loony lestist love Cuba and the Castro Bros. so much, why are they here? My guess is that they're masochists or just here looking for handouts or public assistance. We are, after all, a generous and good decent people.
The inherent contradiction in all that clap trap ranting is that these leftist loonys are here, and not in Cuba! Just try to imagine the thriving business they could have on that tortured island just by selling used innertubes for a couple of bucks each. Innovative thinking and personal motivation, that's what you commies need.
Now the, quoting our lord and savior, Jesus Christ, "The poor will always be with you." So get used to it. I did, I listened to the boss, then went out and got a job. Perhaps it's easier to moan and grown, but with a job comes self esteem.
Poverty and/or the state of being poor is all in your mind. When you're really feeling sorry for your victimized self and you haven't got a dime to your name, just take a walk down the isle of the terminal ward of any major city hospital. Grasp and sick person's hand and gently squeeze.
It's not that you're a victim of society, but rather you're the victim of yourslef. A victim of your own laziness, and simply stated you just find it easier to sit on your porch, passing gas and blaming everybody but yourself.
OK, that's my good deed for the day. Now it's your turn to turn it around.
You must be one of those types of individual referred to as "chusma" in El Salvador, right...
Please understand that someone like you is a curiosity to me, because here in the U.S.A. persons so obviously lacking are uncommon.