Post-War Aid: What Kind and Who Decides?
Hurd, Mimi
One of the most wide-ranging political battles unfolding in the wake of the Salvadoran peace accords concerns funding for post-war recovery. The Consultative Group, a coalition of...
...I VOLUME XXV, NUMBER 5 (MAY 1992) 9An Inauspicious Beginning Santa Marta was selected as a promising pilot project for post-war reconstruction months in advance of the peace accords...
...The implementation of the PRN will test Washington's ability to change course and its tolerance for real social change in both the economic and political spheres...
...The Salvadoran government prefers to channel aid via the municipal administrations, whose office-holders belong overwhelmingly to the ARENA party...
...Joe Moakley, U.S.AID officials and the local ARENA mayor, opened discussions with town leaders about community needs...
...Yet it is possible that aid aimed at supporting the Salvadoran government may only aggravate the dire social conditions at the root of the country's turmoil...
...A leather-tooling cooperative in Ciudad Segundo Montes, a repopulated town in an FMLN-controlled zone...
...Similarly, the ARENA government hopes the PRN will enable it to cultivate political support in the conflictive zones in time for the 1994 elections...
...Thirty-six percent of the $745 million budget presented in Washington is designated outright for infrastructure, as is a further 27% of the budget within the $324 million category called "Social Sector and Human Capital Needs," which originated as a concession to popular pressure...
...Furthermore, the government made no commitment to involve the NGOs which work with these communities in carrying out these projects...
...The National Reconstruction Plan U.S.AID agreed to provide administrative funds to develop these projects, and also delivered $20,000 to the local mayor's office in January, with the understanding that the initial projects agreed upon with the community-road construction and electrification along various stretches between Santa Marta and outlying communities-would be completed by February...
...Through MEA, local mayors bought support by financing small-scale projects to build infrastructure and to provide for other basic needs...
...The United States continues to use aid to legitimize the current government, one of the principal parties in the conflict, rather than institutionalize new relationships among the country's political forces...
...AID funds directly to the NGO representing the community was discussed, but Ambassador Walker said that aid must be channeled through the local municipality...
...Local communities and opposition sectors view municipal officials with suspicion because they represent outposts of national authority and, in the past, government repression...
...Many local mayors have had no relations until now with the communities designated in the PRN and will find this opening useful...
...International Monitoring At the March meeting in Washington, the Consultative Group strongly recommended putting two conditions on the PRN...
...U.S...
...Some grassroots projects were incorporated into the PRN, but they comprise a small percentage of the total budget...
...policy towards El Salvador has not changed...
...This inauspicious beginning may mean that Santa Marta is turning out to be a truer model of post-war reconstruction than anyone intended...
...VOLUME XXV, NUMBER 5 (MAY 1992) 9 Mimi Hurd is afreelance writer based in New York...
...As of early April, just three kilometers of highway had been laid and posts for electrical wire had been planted only within the town itself...
...Trees in the town that the community had specifically asked to be preserved were felled in the process...
...These projects are designed to enable 9,000 people in the area to become economically productive and self-sufficient...
...Given the experience of Panama and Nicaragua to date, El Salvadormightbe considered lucky to receive significant reconstruction funds of any kind...
...The Consultative Group, a coalition of 19 countries and 12 international organizations including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development bank, the United States, Canada, Japan, and a number of European countries, is the chief providerof aid...
...Secondly, the Group required the Salvadoran government to comply with stringent accounting procedures and to submit to an independent audit by an international firm...
...Drafted by the ARENA government, the plan was presented to various groups throughout El Salvador, but was modified only at the government's discretion...
...policy toward El Salvador a failure...
...AID program of the mid-1980s...
...The scheduling of international aid commitments has also served to foreclose the process of debate within El Salvador which began when hostilities ended...
...How the PRN is finally carried out will be an important indicator of whether the peace accords' promise of political and economic change can be realized...
...The PRN was presented at the March meeting in Washington in the context of a review of the ARENA government's year-old program for structural adjustment, since the World Bank considers the PRN "complementary" to ARENA's overall economic program...
...Ambassador William Walker's trip to Santa Marta in June of 1991 was the first visit of a U.S...
...MEA was the civilian version of previous military-run counterinsurgency "civic action" projects...
...These local initiatives tend to favor small-scale, independent, community enterprises which differ profoundly from the neo-liberal and export-oriented agro-business model at the core of the ARENA program...
...The possibility of giving U.S...
...The PRN is also a test for Washington...
...The community organized its return to the northcentral region of Cabafias not long ago...
...Congress also wrote into law another oversight mechanism...
...The Bush administration insists that all funding go directly to the government of El Salvador, conditional on the achievement of consensus on the National Reconstruction Plan (PRN...
...The U.S...
...In this respect, U.S...
...First, the Group called on the government to give priority to the PRN's "Democratic Strengthening Programs" this year, rather than deferring them...
...Many of the 108 communities in the conflictive zones have formulated their own development plans based on local community needs, priorities and capacities...
...Although the majority of Salvadorans are now concentrated in urban areas, the PRN targets the formerly "conflictive zones" in an attempt to recuperate governmental control and reintegrate these areas into national economic life...
...A RAND corporation report issued on the day of the signing of the accords in Mexico declared U.S...
...With the help of NGOs and a technical assistance team contracted by them, Santa Marta drew up plans for 20 inter-related projects for increased agricultural production, crop diversification, storage facilities, transportation enterprises, artisanal and mechanical workshops, revitalization of former bakeries and dairies, marketing, and small-scale industrial production...
...The National Reconstruction Plan is mainly devoted to capital development...
...Walker, accompanied by Cong...
...This town of 3,000 is one of many communities of repatriates who survived years in Honduran refugee camps after being driven from their villages by the military...
...government official to a "liberated" community...
...Fifty million dollars over and above the original budget was allocated for that purpose...
...The Group pledged nearly $800 million when it met in March with representatives of the Salvadoran government, the FMLN, the peace commission (COPAZ), and labor and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at the World Bank's headquarters in Washington...
...The government plan rejuvenates "Municipalities in Action" (MEA), the U.S...
Vol. 25 • May 1992 • No. 5
