The administration of Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren celebrated its 100th day in office last month, taking the chance to report on actions taken to advance towards equality.
Among the achievements of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) administration is the opening of 43 new community health clinics, along with the first specialised pharmacy for patients with chronic illnesses.
Working to guarantee the right to dignified living conditions, the administration has installed cement floors in 4619 homes in 28 impoverished municipalities and built 177 new homes with another 388 underway in communities damaged by the 2001 earthquake. Potable water service has been extended to 35,000 Salvadorans.
The president has convened a National Citizen Security Council with representatives from across Salvadoran society and the political spectrum to create comprehensive community responses to violence and develop violence prevention initiatives.
The agriculture ministry has distributed 200,000 agricultural packets of bean seeds to peasant farmers and invested US$400,000 in phase one of a new urban and suburban agriculture project in the greater San Salvador metropolitan area. The administration has also granted 2124 land titles to rural families, 865 of which went to women.
In economic measures, the Development Bank of El Salvador has granted $15.3 million to provide low-interest loans, credit and advice to women running small businesses. As well as new tax initiatives to raise state income, El Salvador is projected to save millions of dollars after joining Petrocaribe, a Venezuelan oil buying association.
The right-wing opposition has responded to the administration’s publication with a counter-campaign to smear the leftist government, bolstered by the conservative media’s work to promote a sense of chaos and despair in national headlines.
But despite these destabilising efforts, the FMLN government has much to celebrate in the first few months of this newest phase of El Salvador’s struggle for social and economic justice.
[Abridged from CIPSES.org.]
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