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  • Closed Compact Report:  Closed Compact Report: El Salvador Compact
  • April 2018

Introduction

In November 2006, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the Government of El Salvador signed a five-year, $461 million compact to reduce poverty by investing in the underdeveloped Northern Zone of the country. The compact invested in education, public services, agricultural production, rural business development, and transportation infrastructure through three projects.

  • The Human Development Project promoted increased physical and social infrastructure in the Northern Zone through investments in both education and vital community infrastructure.
  • The Connectivity Project helped to physically unify El Salvador’s Northern Zone with the rest of the country by improving road systems, enabling new economic opportunities for rural households, lowering transportation costs, and decreasing travel times to markets.
  • The Productive Development Project sought to increase the incomes of Northern Zone residents by providing technical assistance, training, and financial support to alleviate constraints to high-quality production, increased productivity and access to investment capital.

Under the compact, MCC and the Government of El Salvador rehabilitated or constructed more than 223 km of road (roughly equivalent to the distance between Washington, DC and Philadelphia), three large bridges and 20 smaller bridges. An estimated 35,412 families now have electricity in their homes thanks to the installation of new power lines and solar power systems, and over 7,600 households are now connected to potable water. The compact also built a new technical community college; improved course offerings, curricula, and teacher training; expanded and rehabilitated 20 high schools; and assisted an estimated 17,500 farmers and craftsmen through the provision of training, seeds, equipment, and technical assistance.

This report provides a summary of the tangible outputs of the compact program, documents changes in compact activities, and provides information on performance against targets in the monitoring plan and on the results of completed independent evaluations. Additional evaluations of compact activities will be completed in 2018 and 2019 and this report will be updated once these evaluations are final.