El Salvador: Building social capital to reduce violence: A new transition in El Salvador
JOINT PROGRAMME QUICK FACTS
Total Budget $8,500,000
Delivery Rate
Main Achievements
- Approval of a strategic plan for the national policy of security and peaceful coexistence.
- Approval of a ban on weapons in public spaces in San Salvador and 26 other municipalities.
- Mobile courses for youth to avoid them having to travel through areas with increased problems due to "mara" or gang violence.
El Salvador has the highest violence rates in all of Latin America. It has a homicide rate of over 68.7 per 100,000 inhabitants and alarming rates of other expressions of violence. High violence rates obstruct for the consolidation of democratic government, human development, and the achievement of the MDGs.
Violence has negatively impacted the population’s quality of life, deteriorating the social fabric and incurring high human and economic costs. This initiative addresses Area I & II - MDG-F window - by working to build consensus and strengthen state capacities for the prevention and reduction of armed violence, benefiting institutions at the national level and locally in the Metropolitan Area of San Salvador. It will promote multi-stakeholder consensus in the articulation and implementation of violence prevention and citizen security plans, with leading participation of youth and women, recovering public spaces as places of coexistence, and increasing youth development capacities.