[{"bbox": [72, 76, 215, 100], "category": "Section-header", "text": "# 1 CONTEXT"}, {"bbox": [72, 116, 294, 142], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## 1.1 Country context"}, {"bbox": [72, 154, 1158, 420], "category": "Text", "text": "The election of President Nayib Bukele in 2019 represented a break with the previous political establishment of two political parties that fought during the civil war and signed the peace agreement (1980-1992). President N. Bukele continues to enjoy strong support. In the 2021 legislative elections, the President's party, Nuevas Ideas, and its allies, won an outright majority in the Legislative Assembly. Since his election, President Bukele has adopted a populist tone and made decisions that undermine democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights. The new Legislative Assembly has reinforced these concerns when it dismissed all magistrates of the Constitutional Court and the Attorney General in its first session. A law on judicial reform passed in September 2021 has further reduced the scope for the judiciary by removing judges over 60 years of age, thus introducing many new judges aligned with the government. With the Legislative majority and control of the judiciary, civil society and international organizations have expressed concern about the centralization of power and the lack of proper democratic checks and balances in the country."}, {"bbox": [72, 431, 1158, 618], "category": "Text", "text": "Lack of opportunities and violence push Salvadorans, in particularly youth, towards migration. El Salvador is a principal source of migrants to the United States; around 2 million Salvadorans are estimated to be in the US, and remittances account for around 20% of GDP. Relations between El Salvador and the USA are particularly marked by this issue, and the government's focus has been on trying to address the root causes of migration in terms of providing security and economic opportunities, although lack of transparency and clear policy direction risks undermining the main commitments in this regard. Quarantines and reduced economic activity have negatively affected employment and underemployment, for youth in particular."}, {"bbox": [72, 630, 1158, 763], "category": "Text", "text": "Gender inequality and violence against women remain very high, and have deteriorated during the pandemic: women, who suffer higher levels of underemployment and marginalisation in the labour market, have been suffering strongly from the reduced economic activities during lockdowns. There are also reports of increasing levels of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV). Civil society organisations have criticised a lack of gender perspective in government policies to address the impact of COVID-19 on women and girls."}, {"bbox": [72, 775, 1158, 829], "category": "Text", "text": "Poverty levels are also higher for groups in vulnerable situations, such as indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities, without being clear due to lack of data if and how many PWD have benefited from social programmes."}, {"bbox": [72, 841, 184, 865], "category": "Section-header", "text": "### COVID-19:"}, {"bbox": [72, 879, 1158, 960], "category": "Text", "text": "The COVID-19 pandemic has had severe negative impacts on El Salvador: an already weak health system is struggling with the continued increase of cases. The lockdowns and quarantines have also negatively affected the already limited economic growth; whereby unemployment, poverty and inequality are all expected to grow significantly."}, {"bbox": [72, 971, 1158, 1211], "category": "Text", "text": "The impacts of COVID-19 are also hitting women and specific groups in more vulnerable situations the hardest. Women are being particularly affected in their health (especially regarding sexual and reproductive health needs), economic independence and safety, being more exposed to gender-based violence/. Gender imbalances are also reflected in the fact that although most of the frontline health workers are women, the key decision-makers in the process of designing and executing the pandemic response are men. The specific underlying conditions of persons living with disabilities also puts them at higher risk of contracting COVID-19, while they may also face additional barriers in seeking health care and experience discrimination and negligence in health and social services. Migrants and IDPs are also disproportionately at risk from the impact of the pandemic, due to inadequate and crowded living conditions, limited access to healthcare, poor working conditions and exploitative labour systems."}, {"bbox": [72, 1236, 530, 1262], "category": "Section-header", "text": "### 1.1.1 Context Policy Framework (Global, EU)"}, {"bbox": [72, 1274, 1158, 1404], "category": "Text", "text": "The proposed action aims at reformulating the actions to be supported with the remaining EUR 33 million from the MIP 2014-2020 for El Salvador under priority sectors 1 (Youth and Social Inclusion) and 2 (Private Sector Development). It also envisages the modification of the approach previously undertaken for the implementation of the Contribution Agreement with AECID to implement an action supporting women economic empowerment, amounting to EUR 10 million."}, {"bbox": [72, 1420, 539, 1447], "category": "Text", "text": "The strategic objectives of the MIP 2014-2020 are:"}, {"bbox": [109, 1459, 1158, 1539], "category": "List-item", "text": "- to help deepen the democratisation process and sustainable development in the country, with a focus on social inclusion (poverty reduction, fighting inequality and exclusion, the prevention of violence), good governance and human rights, protection of the environment and climate resilience;"}, {"bbox": [602, 1616, 629, 1639], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "[7]"}]