Activists Fight U.S. Aid to Develop El Salvador’s Pacific Coastline
Activists Fight U.S. Aid to Develop El Salvador’s Pacific Coastline
By Edgardo Ayala
JIQUILISCO, El Salvador , Apr 29 2013 (IPS) - Community leaders in El Salvador are opposed to the government’s plans to use U.S. aid funds to develop the country’s Pacific coastline, on the grounds that it would threaten the environment in a vast area.
“The natural areas we have protected for so long will be seriously affected if tourism investments are made in these coastal zones,” as the government intends, within the framework of the United States Millennium Challenge Fund (FOMILENIO) programme, activist Amílcar Cruz García, secretary of the Asociación Mangle (Mangrove Association), a community organisation in the Lower Lempa area in the southeastern department or province of Usulután, told IPS.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the U.S. government foreign aid agency funding FOMILENIO, offered El Salvador a second package of 277 million dollars of non-refundable aid in December 2011, to develop the coastal region. Final approval could occur late this year.
The first FOMILENIO programme in El Salvador was rolled out in 2007-2012, injecting 460 million dollars in investment in the northern region of the country.
More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/activists-fight-u-s-aid-to-develop-el-salvadors-pacific-coastline/
