The Chapultepec Peace Accords of January 1992 formally ended a 12-year civil conflict in El Salvador. The international community assisted the country in post-conflict recovery. Local governments in El Salvador had to take up the challenge of re-ensuring social cohesion in their communities and sharing in the country-wide reconciliation efforts.

The session will present how local governments in El Salvador took up this responsibility, the obstacles they met, and which solutions were found. Important challenges for local governments were to build up democracy from the local level, to enhance dialogue between former combating groups in their towns, to re-integrate former combatants, to name a few. 

The session will then discuss how local governments in El Salvador can share these experiences with partner municipalities who are still dealing with the daily consequences of internal armed conflict. Focus will be given to existing examples of partnership between local governments in El Salvador and in Colombia. The point of view of local government associations will be presented.

Questions that will be addressed are:
• how did local governments in El Salvador deal with conflict recovery?
• what was the role of international actors in peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction?
• what was the share of local governments and their association in the promotion of social cohesion in the municipalities after the conflict?
• what are the advantages of regional partnerships in relation to overseas-cooperation
• what can local governments from El Salvador teach their colleagues in Colombia and what can they learn from them?

 

Moderator
Carlos Pinto Guardado, Executive Director of the Association of Municipalities of the Republic of  El Salvador

Speakers
Simon Antonio Amaya, Mayor of Tecoluca  (El Salvador)

Emilio Espín Amprimo, Manager  CORDES,  Foundation for the Cooperation and Communal Development of El Salvador - Tecoluca (El Salvador)

Gilberto Munoz, Mayor of Corinto (Colombia)