[{"bbox": [96, 152, 1134, 302], "category": "Text", "text": "El Salvador is currently the second country in the Latin American region with the highest emerging markets bond index (EMBI), reaching a 29.04%, which represents a 21 points difference in one year. This significant increase is a result of the political situation, the adoption of bitcoin as legal tender and the risks that El Salvador will not be able to meet their payments. Having such a high EMBI will make it difficult for the Government to access debt and to have sufficient resources to implement their national budget."}, {"bbox": [96, 316, 1134, 467], "category": "Text", "text": "President Bukele's authoritarian drift, coupled to the current uncertain macroeconomic perspectives and worsening PFM results and fiscal transparency², have hampered the Delegation's options to continue engaging with the Government through Budget Support, which was the preferred modality employed during the previous budgetary period. Budget support is not an option in the short term. However, policy dialogue through ESCO (Government Cooperation Agency) and with the line Ministries has continued."}, {"bbox": [96, 481, 1134, 603], "category": "Text", "text": "In March 2022, an exceptional surge in homicides led Congress to vote for a state of emergency temporarily restricting constitutional guarantees such as defence rights or inviolability of communications. The President led a virulent tweet campaign against gang members. Notwithstanding, President Bukele continues to enjoy strong popular support, largely because of the huge decline in murder rates since August 2019."}, {"bbox": [96, 616, 1134, 706], "category": "Text", "text": "Overall, El Salvador maintains some potential to boost its economic growth. The country's strategic location, with access to many markets, a growing and reliable labour force, a digital-oriented young public leadership and a solid industrial base could help to expand trade to achieve stronger and more inclusive growth."}, {"bbox": [96, 720, 1134, 871], "category": "Text", "text": "An inclusive post-covid reconstruction plan for Latin America and the Caribbean should be centred on the 2030 Agenda and mainly on Sustainable Development Goal 16 on peace, justice and inclusive institutions. This will be key to position the principles of governance for the region by translating consensus into programmatic agenda items towards 2030, with a focus on peace building, sustainable development, robust social protection systems, transparent and efficient justice systems, and enabling opportunities for peaceful coexistence in El Salvador."}, {"bbox": [96, 898, 1134, 1079], "category": "Text", "text": "In relation to governance, after the 1992 peace accords, two traditional parties dominated El Salvador's political landscape; the right-wing ARENA party ruled for 20 years and then the left-wing FMLN party ruled for 10 years. Although other small parties had seats in the Legislative Assembly, these two traditional big parties had the majority of the population's support. However, in 2019 and 2021, drastic changes took place with a new political party under the leadership of Mr. Nayib Bukele, winning the presidential and legislative elections with a wide difference from other parties, changing the traditional political party system."}, {"bbox": [96, 1093, 1134, 1427], "category": "Text", "text": "The proposed Action will provide the EU with a seat at the table of donors supporting good governance, democracy and rule of law in El Salvador. In the recent years, USAID, through support to IFES³, IRI⁴ and UNDP, has provided support to the electoral process through technical assistance to the TSE⁵ to improve administrative and electoral procedures, decision making processes, and technology. IRI has provided support to the Assembly on legislative technique. NDI⁶ has been working with political parties to strengthen their capacities on organisation, participation and communication. In the past (2012), the EU implemented a project strengthening citizen participation and electoral institutionalism, with UNDP. Currently, USAID is still executing a USD 12 million project to strengthen electoral processes and transparency, therefore, the EUD will work in coordination with all actors involved in the sector to avoid duplicating efforts and to have a bigger impact on the country. We already agreed to organise a coordination group on Governance. Regarding fact-checking, the EU has just started working on fact checking through a pilot workshop that allowed to train about 40 journalists."}, {"bbox": [85, 1523, 995, 1550], "category": "Footnote", "text": "² Open Budget Index, OBI, down from 46 in 2019 to 40 in 2021; the worse performance in Central America"}, {"bbox": [85, 1548, 502, 1574], "category": "Footnote", "text": "³ International Foundation for Electoral Systems"}, {"bbox": [85, 1573, 391, 1597], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁴ International Republican Institute"}, {"bbox": [85, 1596, 345, 1622], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁵ Tribunal Supremo Electoral"}, {"bbox": [85, 1621, 359, 1644], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁶ National Democratic Institute"}, {"bbox": [1037, 1655, 1144, 1680], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 5 of 19"}]