The IDEV Intersession Field Practicum will provide career development for participating students in two areas: developing research skills and providing career development/networking opportunities. First, the Practicum will allow participating students to apply their theoretical knowledge to an in-depth country case study to produce a publication quality research paper. Many executives at some point in their careers seek to increase our practical knowledge of public policy issues by publishing research based on their work experience combined with an analysis of primary data from a variety of sources. The Field Practicum will allow students to begin developing research skills by designing and executing a research project that incorporates primary source data gathered in El Salvador. Students will benefit from critical feedback from IDEV faculty on research design and execution. This research exercise might serve as the basis for a master’s or doctoral thesis, stand alone publication, or it might merely be a learning process. Any of these is acceptable for student participation in the Practicum. Second, approximately 30-35 interviews in El Salvador in January and the during the fall lecture series will provide students with networking opportunities and will increase student knowledge of the pros and cons of careers in different sectors. The lecture series and in-country interviews will be organized around three core thematic areas: 1) sub-national public administration, 2) national level political development, and 3) economic development. A fourth cross-cutting category, institutionalized aid, will focus on the evolution of development assistance in the El Salvador over a fifty-year period. The three core thematic areas are broad enough to allow students to accommodate virtually any public policy research topic tailored to their individual interest. The lecture series will emphasize knowledge of regional and Salvadoran history and research projects should similarly provide historical context for current policy issues. Knowledge of history can often provide guidance on what is and is not a tradeoff in policy decisions. For instance, in the Central American region relatively advanced literacy indicators in San Salvador, San José and Havana as early as the 1920s suggest that long-term underlying characteristics of these societies should be considered alongside formal public policies in explaining specific social outcomes in these societies. Country Overview El Salvador offers a peculiar case study for international development professionals. On the negative side of the balance sheet, it is clearly a poor country that suffered a devastating civil war at the end of the 20th century. On positive side, El Salvador has done better than some of its Central American neighbors in terms of economic diversification and democratic consolidation. In terms of institutionalized aid, successive and overlapping waves of international aid since 1980 have been linked with conflict mitigation and recovery (1980-2000), hurricane Mitch recovery (1998-2002) and earthquake recovery (2001-04). These charity flows have given rise to everything from legitimate development to donor fatigue and system gaming. Most recently, El Salvador has begun to graduate from aid as resources have shifted toward tsunami-affected Pacific countries and the geostrategic Middle East. While the advent of institutionalized aid in El Salvador is relatively recent, the country itself is a 500 year old society. Ibero-Catholic conquest culture and institutions shaped the polity that would become El Salvador beginning in the 16th century. As an extension of the subjugation of Mexico, conquistadores took land and Indian grants (encomiendas) in what is now Central America as compensation for subduing the region in the early 16th century. The five modern day countries of Central America—Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica—initially belonged to a major administrative unit in the Spanish Empire called the Kingdom of Guatemala, were briefly part of the Mexican Empire (1822-3), and then coequals in a loose confederation called the United Provinces (1823-40). Upon dissolution of the United Provinces in 1840, El Salvador began its autonomous political life as one of five newly independent republics of Central America. Its government from that time through the late twentieth century was characterized by the alternation of limited access, oligarchic regimes under formal democratic institutions and military dictatorships. As early as the 1960s, El Salvador began to diversify away from a mono-crop export economy based on cochineal and coffee at different historical periods with the creation of a maquila, or offshore assembly, industry. Today, El Salvador is a small country with a total population of 7 million in 2007 (or about 1/33 the size of Indonesia) and a land mass about the size of Massachusetts. With population density roughly equivalent to that of Belgium, however, El Salvador is the most densely populated country in Latin America. By many measures, El Salvador is a poor country. In 2008 it ranked 100th of 222 countries with an infant mortality rate of about 23/1,000 live births. In 2007 El Salvador ranked 127th of 227 countries with a per capita GDP (PPP) of about $6,000. Outside of a few area specialists, most international observers probably identify El Salvador with its 1979-92 civil war, the country’s only notable moment of geopolitical importance. Approximately 80,000, or 1.7%, of its citizens died, making this conflict comparable to the American Civil war of 1860-65 in terms of lives lost, when approximately 600,000, or 1.8%, of U.S. citizens died. One enduring legacy of the Salvadoran civil war—which must also be associated with general social phenomena related to modernization and urbanization—is the perceived threat from increased violent crime, or delincuencia. Recently this social disorder has led to popular support for zero-tolerance crime enforcement policies, called mano dura or strong-arm policies. Additionally, a large Salvadoran ex-patriot community in the United States benefits from the preferential Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a policy initially begun in the war years, and has made remittances a significant contributor to the Salvadoran economy at about 16.7% of GDP, or ranked 15th out of 176 countries in 2005 by this measure. Such large remittances and a large ex-patriot community give rise to public policy questions on issues as varied as equality in distribution of remittances, fiscal and voting policies. This large ex-patriot community also gives rise to cultural questions related to potential effects on work ethic and the Salvadoran nuclear family. Despite these negative or ambiguous social phenomena, El Salvador is something of a success story. Three areas where sustainable development successes are seen make up the core thematic focuses of the IDEV Intersession Field Practicum. A fourth category, international aid, complements these three thematic areas: Theme 1. Sub-national Public Administration- Following policy trends of the last thirty year, El Salvador has decentralized many public policy functions. This includes a range of activities from strengthening municipal governments through national-to-municipal financial transfers to decentralizing or privatizing central government functions. Opponents of decentralization argue that economies of scale suggest that more national-level organizations and centralized planning should have a comparative advantage over local actors and decentralized processes in addressing public policy issues ranging from infrastructure to education. Proponents of decentralization argue that the advantages of central planning remain largely theoretical, even in a small country like El Salvador, and that local actors have proven highly themselves quite competent at identifying and addressing a host of issues most relevant to people’s well-being. These areas range from high-profile policy areas like education to the more mundane issue of trash collection. Specific examples are seen in the creation in 1999 of the FODES (Fondo para el Desarrollo Económico y Social), a 6% national to local revenue transfer program. On the positive side, this fund has given municipal governments resources to address demands for services from local constituencies that range from payment of teachers salaries and electrification projects to support for patrimonial festivals. On the negative side, some argue that these funds are a substitute for paying municipal taxes, a practice that is virtually non-existent in El Salvador. A second issue is the decentralization that FISDL (Fondo de Inversión Social de Desarrollo Local) instituted in 2001. Traditionally a centralized agency tasked with the designing and implementing rural development projects, FISDL changed its model to an open competition for development funds where the only criteria for funds was the amount of counterpart contribution a municipality could come up with. Opponents argued that this would disadvantage the poorest municipalities most in need of central government help; proponents, after implementation of the new program, countered that it was actually the hungrier, more resourceful poorer municipalities who outperformed others in the competition. Finally, decentralization in the health sector was accomplished through the SIBASI (Sistema Básico de Salud Integral) system of geographically defined health units anchored by major regional hospitals in early 2000. The jury is still out on the overall impact of the SIBASI reforms. In the education sector, the EDUCO (Educación con Participación de la Comunidad) program accomplished de facto decentralization by providing parents with funds to pay teachers’ salaries. What are the effects of this program and will it survive intact during the next five years? These are only five examples of current policy issues in sub-national public administration. Theme 2. Political Development- El Salvador has also developed politically, as ex-combatants from the country’s civil war successfully channeled their conflict into democratic institutions. The Marxist FMLN laid down its arms in 1992 and as a political party made incremental gains at the polls during the 1992-2008 period, especially at the municipal level with a reputation for pragmatic public administration at this level of government. The election of Mauricio Funes, a moderate FMLN outsider, in 2008 obviously marks a substantive milestone in El Salvador’s political development. Since the peace accords, ARENA, El Salvador’s right-wing party, has successfully diminished the influence of the state’s security apparatus and accepts FMLN’s participation in governing. While the passing of time has not yet diminished the number of individuals who participated in the war from elite political circles, the election as president of Francisco “Paco” Flores (1999-2004), a non-combatant, in 1999 is considered by some as a watershed moment in the consolidation of Salvadoran democracy. Unlike some of its neighbors, El Salvador’s right and left have developed ideologies and Salvadoran politics is, as a result, arguably less personalistic than its neighbors’. Threats to democracy do exist, however. There is currently an intra-party debate for the soul of the FMLN, with one side modeling itself on the moderate Brazilian Lula-left nationally or as a pragmatic local administrators and the other side with aspirations to emulate the Venezuelan Chavez-left. On the right, a moderate pro-business contingent on the Salvadoran struggles with more conservative elements, with the latter particularly uneasy to the extent that FMLN hardliners influence national policy. For instance, the incoming FMLN administration has declared that a radical break with past national level policies—like de-dollarization or repudiation of external debt—are not under consideration. Nonetheless, the prospect of less radical yet still substantive policy changes might prove contentious. Examples include the recent suggestion of tilting the education curriculum toward humanistic content, a la Rodó, and away from vocational education geared toward providing El Salvador with economic comparative advantage and, separately, changing the rules about public sector employees’ ability to unionize. Theme 3. Economic Development- El Salvador is the “Ruhr Valley of Central America” according to one historian. Compared with its Central American neighbors, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, El Salvador’s per capita GDP has been consistently higher since at least 1960. Its maquila (offshore assembly) sector provides economic diversification away from what was successively a monoculture cochineal, indigo, coffee and sugar export economy over the last 300 years. While the sector briefly gained international notoriety for labor actions against international companies like GAP clothing, some Salvadorans argue that the maquilasector is the envy El Salvador’s neighbors, who are still primary product exporters. Business interests are well organized in El Salvador and have successfully promoted pro-growth policies and have even affected grassroots development with different development models from those traditionally seen in institutionalized international development. One example of the former is seen in the regional leadership of President Tony Saca (2004-2009) in negotiating the CAFTA, and an example of the latter is the land titling projects that the Salvadoran NGO FUSAI has implemented in squatter settlements. And much of El Salvador’s development appears to be home grown, as non-profit development banks like Central American Economic Integration Bank (BCIE) in El Salvador began educating themselves on sound financial principles in lending as early as the 1960s, well before the advent of foreign aid in the country, while El Salvador’s neighbors are still modernizing their financial sectors. Many Guatemalan, Honduran and Nicaraguan companies are incorporated in El Salvador due to the latter’s pro-business policies. Is this sanguine portrayal of Salvadoran economic dynamism accurate? What are El Salvador’s vulnerabilities and strengths in the global economic recession? Where is the country’s new comparative advantage to the extent that low cost Asia competitors challenge the maquila industry? Will there be a new labor/business dynamic now that the FMLN has gained power? Aid in El Salvador- Foreign aid surged into El Salvador over a 30 year period beginning in about 1980 and is now on the decline. With the exception of hit-or-miss interventions from the Alliance for Progress in the 1960s, there were no significant aid flows to El Salvador in the 1960-80 period. The majority of aid came in a massive surge during the war years of 1980-1992. At its peak, aid was about 11% of Gross National Income in the late ‘80s. From 1993-2001, overall aid flows were stable and substantial, but approximately 30-50% reduced from wartime highs. After earthquakes in early 2001, aid flows spiked briefly, then entered a precipitous decline as El Salvador’s graduation from traditional aid programs coincided with increased supply of aid from rich countries destined for the Middle East and Southeast Asia. During the 1980-2008 period aid program designers tried a variety schemes that included both channeling money through government ministries and creating parallel government structures under a variety of donor-recipient arrangements, including both bilateral and multilateral. Within the bilateral category, aid has evolved from the USAID model, where USAID administrative structures paralleled government structures, to the MCC model. In the latter, local organizations—FOMILENIO in the case of Salvadoran—have more discretion to set their own program goals within the broader development goals that international entities set in the Millennium Development process. These local organizations are then responsible to donors for achieving results as measured by various measurement techniques. In El Salvador, the $435 million Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) work focuses on building an east to west road to economically integrate the rural northern hinterland of the country. This is happening just as the USAID budget and staff have shrunk to a skeleton crew. European donors have continued with their traditional development models with a modest decrease in funding. For some US program designers, the change represented by the MCA constitutes an evolution of aid as El Salvador graduates from traditional assistance; for others aid industry veterans it represents the partial resurrection of a failed development model that puts too much faith in local decision-making and allows local politicians to focus on infrastructure projects, which are ripe for corruption. In other minor cases, small Salvadoran NGOs have made the transition from internationally subsidized operations to fee-for-service models as donor money has shifted to Tsunami affected countries in Southeast Asia and to the Middle East. Two non-mutually exclusive explanations for the causes of this diminution of aid to the country exist: The first, donors assessed El Salvador’s progress and determined that it had graduated from aid programs. The second, crises pulled funds away from El Salvador for reasons external to the country. Analysis of these two separate effects in El Salvador can suggest when and whether the aid industry is capable of determining that it has worked itself out of a job. |
