El Salvador

	Progressio country representative in San Salvador:
	Carmen Medina
	Programme Coordinator in London:
	Belisario Nieto
	No. of development workers currently in post:
	7
	We have been working in El Salvardor since 1994

Progressio has been working in El Salvador since 1994. The neo-liberal National Republican Alliance (ARENA), under President Antonio Saca since 2004, has done nothing to address the poverty in El Salvador, a country with some of the highest rates of social (including gender) inequality in Latin America. Despite an increasing population, there has been no economic growth for several years, and a new free trade agreement is expected to bankrupt many small and medium-size businesses in urban and rural areas. Many civil society organisations, however, are attempting to address the economic and social problems of the Salvadorean people. Progressio is strengthening the capacity of its partner organisations to expose policies that are having a detrimental affect on the lives of Salvadoreans and to propose alternatives.

Progressio's development workers have:

• Fostered greater civil society participation by Salvadoran partner organisations at national and local levels to influence environmental policy and introduce regulatory changes that primarily favour women
• Encouraged local partners to share good practice, experience and successful methods for sustainable agriculture and natural resource management. Local partners are also encouraged to develop an anti-sexist focus to work in this area.

Challenges remain. Progressio aims that:

• organic farming and natural resource management will have become the predominant agricultural method in the local economy of at least one rural municipality by the end of 2008
• by 2010, Progressio El Salvador will have at least 30 per cent of its development workers working in the area of sustainable environment