El Salvador is working against principles of sustainable development in several key areas: 1) High poverty rates and wealth inequality have risen; 2) Access to water, food, and nutrition is inadequate; 3) Urban planning in cities like San Salvador negatively impacts quality of life; 4) Transportation systems experience congestion and pollution due to a lack of progress; 5) Oceans and waterways are polluted from trash and drainage; 6) Communities have high vulnerability to natural disasters due to the lack of resilience. Recommendations include improving education, government regulations, investment, and protecting natural resources to work towards a more sustainable future for El Salvador.

1. EL SALVADOR
EL SALVADOR
Going against Sustainable Development
Working against Sustainable Development
Photos taken from: http://www.unmultimedia.org/photo/detail.jsp?id=161/161207&key=18&query=subject:"International Year of Forests: Forests and People"&sf=

2. What is Sustainability?
"Development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs.”
— from the World Commission on Environment and Development’s (the Brundtland Commission) report
Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
The World Bank suggests that to attain it we need to find balance
between social, economic and environmental needs.*
• http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/english/sd.html

3. RIO +20
• The RIO +20 Conference in June 2012 aimed to “shape how we can reduce
poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an
ever more crowded planet to get to the future we want.” (
http://www.uncsd2012.org/about.html)
• A list was presented identifying the necessary sustainability requirements
as a start to the future we want for the planet. It is apparent that El
Salvador is contradicting these inclusions, creating a negative impact and
exacerbating the pertinent issues which shape the country’s current state
of unsustainable behavior. ( http://www.un.org/en/sustainablefuture/sustainability.shtml)
• In the following slides I will touch upon six of the key issues listed in
RIO+20 and show how the people of El Salvador are working against
sustainability.
• At the end, I will list a few recommendations to create a more sustainable
future for El Salvador.

4. 1. How can we help people move out of poverty and get
good jobs, while protecting the environment?
The percentage of Salvadorans living below the poverty line
has risen continuously in the recent years.
(http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=es&v=69&l=es)
The country has an unequal distribution of
wealth, displaying a GINI coefficient of 52.4 (meaning that
the richest 10% of the population receives incomes 57
times higher than the poorest 10%). (http://www.wfp.org/countries/El-
Salvador/Overview)

5. 2. How can we make sure that everyone can get the
water, food and nutrition they need?
The Consumer Price Index has grown exponentially and shows
no sign of leveling off. (http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/el-salvador/consumer-price-index)
Most of the Salvadoran territory needs basic water and drainage
systems. (http://www.prisma.org.sv/uploads/media/prisma42.pdf) SEE MAP IN FOLLOWING SLIDE

6. Indicates basic water and drainage needs by department
in the Salvadoran territory

7. 3. How can we shape our cities so that everyone can
enjoy a decent quality of life?
El Pedregal Castellana Apartments
Apartments
http://graficos.laprensagrafica.com/2010/04/el-espino/ Photo taken by Carolina Schildknecht
• Diego de Holguin Boulevard is being built right now in El Salvador.
The highway construction cuts through a sector that used to be one
of the few green areas left in the capital city, destroying 30 acres of
forest.
• This will be a main cargo highway that passes in the middle of many
residential areas, as you can see in the apartments pictured
above, affecting clean air and quality of life in the area.

8. 4. How can we build better transportation systems that allow us all to
get where we want to go, without causing too much congestion and
pollution?
• In 2004, a group of Japanese investors came to El Salvador with the
idea to fund the construction of a metro in its capital city.
(http://elsalvadorposible.blogspot.com/2008/05/la-triste-historia-del-metro-de-san.html)
• San Salvador mayor Norman Quijano subsequently proposed a
project to build a MetroBus in the capital city. Additional funds
were blocked because central government said they would invest
in the project. Bureaucracy in itself has created unsustainable
practices in the effort to create sustainable methods of
transportation. (http://www.diariocolatino.com/es/20100105/municipalismo/75331/En-pausa-proyectos-
metrob%C3%BAs-y-b%C3%B3vedas---San-Salvador-.htm)
• There are no advances in the matter as traffic congestion
increasingly continues to cause a polarized economic and
environmental deficit for those who need the most benefit.

9. 5. How can we make sure that our oceans are healthy and that
marine life is not threatened by pollution and climate change?
http://cleanthewater.blogspot.com/2010/11/por-que-es-importante-el-agua.html
• Acelhuate River is only one example of the polluted bodies of
water in El Salvador, mainly due to lack of interest in
appropriate trash disposal from the general population.
• Our coast is also heavily polluted by bad drainage systems
that lead to the ocean.

10. 6. How can we make sure that our communities are
resilient in the face of natural disasters?
“The country ranked No.1 in the world climate risk index issued
by German Watch in 2009 and it is listed among the ten
countries in the world that are most vulnerable to natural
hazards (CRED/OFDA). More than 88% of the national territory is
at risk, containing 95.4% of the total population. “
(http://www.wfp.org/countries/El-Salvador/Overview)
Octobre 2011: Tropical Depression “Doce-E”
http://especiales.laprensagrafica.com/2011/sucesos/tormenta-tropical-12-e/index.html

11. What can be done?
• EDUCATION
– Reducing the illiteracy rate and encouraging more
people to graduate high school would improve
their future in the work force and increase
household earnings
– Creating awareness about clean energy and waste
disposal would help slow down climate change
and improve our air and bodies of water

12. What can be done?
• GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS
– Enforcing the policies that are introduced to control
emissions from public transportation
– Industrial regulators to control waste disposal from
major industrial factories in the country
– As chancellor Hugo Martinez said recently in a
conference hosted by CEPAL (Comisión Económica
para América Latina): “El tema central ahora son las
políticas estructurales necesarias para promover el
crecimiento económico con más empleo y mayor
igualdad.” (“The main issue is the political structures
needed to promote economic growth with more
equality.”) http://www.laprensagrafica.com/el-salvador/lodeldia/279735-inicia-reunion-de-cepal-en-el-pais.html

13. What can be done?
• INVESTMENT
– Allowing foreign investment by heavily regulated organizations like the
World Bank to help reduce domestic bureaucracy and leaking monetary
funding mechanisms
– By stabilizing our economy to recover lost economic
investments, unemployment will reduce through the creation of new
economic sectors once completely foreign to the country, allowing
investment in technology to clean our waterways, “green”
transportation systems, and the investment in renewable energy
[Se debe] trabajar por mantener [We must] work to keep a “prudent
"prudencia económica", "fortalecer su economy", “strengthen macroeconomic
gestión macroeconómica" y de paso management" as well as “maintain
"sostener los esfuerzos de la política social political efforts in the social agenda and
y la inversión pública" por ser claves en el public investment" because they are key
desarrollo. factors in development.
- Alicia Barcena, CEPAL Executive Director - Alicia Barcena, CEPAL Executive Director
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j1KPcuZYwtdvLl9zDfru2jJOpIoQ?docId=CNG.37113abff85936ed27d448e6cb45b98c.cc1

14. What can be done?
• PROTECTING OUR NATURAL RESOURCES
– Not many forests remain
– “El Salvador lost 20.5 percent of its forest cover
between 1990 and 2005. The country's
deforestation rate has increased by 18 percent
since the close of the 1990s.”(http://rainforests.mongabay.com/20elsalvador.htm)
– The country continues to diminish nature’s ability
to protect itself and its residents from increasing
carbon emissions

15. A Sustainable El Salvador
It CAN be done, if:
- We recognize the roots of the problems
- We address the social, economic, and environmental impacts of each
political decision we make
- We shape future politics by creating awareness within those who
shape the outcomes of a democratic election system of government, ie.
the country’s very own population
- We establish this necessary awareness through education.
MY EDUCATION FOR A SUSTAINABLE EL SALVADOR CONTINUES HERE.