Local Campaign for Global Justice

CoCivica, a network of Salvadoran NGOs, will organise information caravans to eighteen municipalities during Global Week of Action.

On average El Salvador is not considered a poor country. Photo: Lisbeth Elvekjær.

Global Week of Action, the international campaign for fair trade, must also reach Salvadoran communities. This is the commitment made by MS partner CoCivica, which will organise information caravans to visit eighteen of El Salvador’s municipalities.

Forty-two percent of the population of this Central American nation lives in poverty, and 17% in extreme poverty. However, on average El Salvador is not considered a poor country. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) this can be explained by looking at the wide and growing gap between the rich and the poor. While 20% of the wealthiest population makes 58.03% of all income, the 20 poorest percentile receives only 2.4%.

“This is a tendency that will only get worse when the Free Trade Agreement between the United States, the Dominican Republic and Central America (DR-CAFTA) goes into force,” says Gerardo Aristondo of CoCivica. “The giant US companies, alongside the state-subsidised agricultural sector in the US will threaten our industry as well as our food production. We cannot compete.” This negative development for most of the population will further increase both legal and illegal immigration to the United States, according to Aristondo. “We’re going to become the new Puerto Rico”, he comments sadly, in reference to the US protectorate in the Caribbean. 

According to the 2004 Human Rights Watch report, most Salvadoran organisations consider that the TLC is not inspired by consideration for the well-being of the population but rather by a vested interest in securing strong alliances between transnational companies and national capital. 

“Through the caravans we intend to inform small producers, workers in export processing zones (EPZ), women, men and children regarding how the neoliberal TLC will have an impact on the prices of their modest production and on work conditions in the factories. But we will also talk about alternative models for survival”, Aristondo explains. 

CoCivica has organised local tables in 32 municipalities. According to Aristondo the best reply to the DR-CAFTA is to form alternative market chains, starting with small farmers who join forces to establish a municipal market where these producers can sell their rice, beans and maize without intermediaries. Little by little these municipal markets unite to sell their products in the capital, San Salvador, and in the longer term they may even be in a position to export to neighbouring countries (for example, organically grown varieties which US farmers do not produce could be exported to that country). 

The CoCivica caravans are one of the many activities that will take place in Central America during Global Week of Action.