El Salvador is home to highly qualified local professionals, American-style business climate and friendly populace. But it’s also infamous for being one of the most violent countries in the world.
With 10 years’ experience in the capital San Salvador, Research Triangle Institute Regional Director Aldo Miranda is familiar with the advantages and drawbacks of living and working in the Central American nation.
Miranda left his native El Salvador in 1978 on the eve of the civil war in order to study civil engineering at the University of South Florida. He returned to the country in 1984 to work with the U.S. Agency for International Development and has served as chief of party on a number of Central American governance and crime prevention projects funded by the agency. Miranda joined RTI in 1999 as chief of party on a local governance project in El Salvador.
In this second part of our interview, Miranda discussed what life is like for a development professional based in El Salvador. He also shared his thoughts on the country’s problematic security situation, to which much of the donor assistance is increasingly tied.
What are the rising development sectors in El Salvador?
Regionally, it’s increasingly tied into all the problems with the drug trafficking, and human trafficking, and violence. So, there is great focus on the “northern triangle” of Central America: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
The previous [Salvadoran] administration had a poverty map and focused on the 100 poorest municipalities in the rural areas. The new government has taken a similar approach. But they have just released an urban area poverty map, and they are using that to cross information with most violent communities in order to focus on those where there is extreme violence and poverty. So, they are talking with all the agencies - IDB, GTZ, USAID - that the resources be concentrated on those areas, which makes sense.
In the past, the country was kind of mapped out by the agencies. There was an area where only the Germans worked, an area where only the Japanese worked, and then USAID was all over the map based on their themes. The EU focused on northern border towns. With this new focus, it’s going to have more impact - at least in theory.
What is it like living and working in El Salvador as a development professional?
From the professional perspective, it is very competitive. El Salvador has a good base of local professionals. Local consultants are well-trained. It really forces you as a development agency to be on the edge of technology in the topics that you are going to present and discuss, because you are going to find people in the government and the local NGOs that are at a very high level.
Not just anybody can come in and work in El Salvador compared to Africa or Southeast Asia - or even Nicaragua, for example, or Honduras. Their development levels are still behind. El Salvador is a very advanced society in the sense of technology and capabilities.
[El Salvador] has good infrastructure. Everything is close at hand. It’s easy to travel from one end to another. You can cross it in three hours from one end to the other.
The climate is extremely good: It’s not too hot; it’s not cold. The Salvadorans are very open to foreigners. It also has a professional challenge - you really work for your money. It’s not a banana republic, where you have a siesta time. That doesn’t exist in El Salvador. It’s very much like U.S., extremely U.S.[-oriented]: quick lunches, people stay long at work.
How significant of an issue is security?
If you are part of the diplomatic corps or the development agencies, you usually have a bodyguard or a driver. Like any other place in the world, there are areas you definitely don’t want to go in.
The homicide [rate] is almost the highest in Latin America. But part of that is that we have good statistics in El Salvador. We are working in this area. The numbers are very close to reality, whereas other countries don’t have good statistics. This is a personal perception that, in a lot of other parts of Latin America, the other countries are more violent than El Salvador. But we are counting bodies, and in other places, they are not counting bodies.
But it is restrictive in that sense. Kids can’t play on the street here…not even in the best neighborhoods, unless you live in gated communities. Kidnappings are really being reduced drastically, but there is a lot of extortion.
Especially if you come from Europe or the U.S. and you are used to freedom in the public places, you take it for granted. They see an American-looking person, you will not feel threatened as a foreigner. But when they see an American-looking person, you don’t have the problem in other country where people stare at you. Salvadorans are used to seeing foreigners for years - before the war, during the war, and after the war. There is no anti-American feeling. “Gringo go home,” that doesn’t exist here.
Read the first part of our interview with Aldo Miranda, where he discusses RTI’s work in El Salvador and Central America, the role of the RTI San Salvador regional office, and the organization’s partnership with the private sector and local groups.
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About the author
Andrew Wainer@AndrewWainer
Andrew Wainer is director of policy research for Save the Children. He was formerly a senior immigration policy analyst at Bread for the World Institute, which provides policy analysis on hunger and strategies to end it. He has also worked as a journalist and social researcher in Latin America and the United States. Andrew’s research and journalism has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal, among other publications. He holds a master’s degree in Latin American studies from UCLA and is fluent in Spanish and proficient in Portuguese.
