Caribbean & Central America - July 2021

On 10 June Alicia Bárcena, the head of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac) emphasised the organisation’s commitment to the Comprehensive Development Plan for northern Central America and southern Mexico.

The governments of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador commissioned Eclac to produce the plan in December 2018. It has since won support from numerous foreign governments and international organisations despite some doubts over how its lofty goals will be achieved.

The main focus of the plan is to create jobs and economic opportunities in areas that see high levels of migration, namely northern Central America and nine states in south and south-eastern Mexico, Bárcena noted. There are four main pillars: economic development, social well-being, environmental sustainability and comprehensive management of the migration cycle. “Eclac has contributed to addressing the structural causes of migration: the problem of unemployment, inequality, the effects of natural disasters, violence, and family reunification”, Bárcena said. 

The migration pillar has been met with criticism in some quarters that argue that this should not form part of an economic development plan. But even the other pillars have also been criticised. On 10 June Bárcena confirmed that 114 projects will be implemented over the next five years, “the costs of which have already been calculated”. In December 2020 those costs were announced as US$45bn. Certain projects are already underway, including the ‘Sembrando Vida’ (‘sowing life’) programme that pays people to plant and care for trees, which started in Mexico and will be extended to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

Infrastructure proposals include improvements in road connections between Guatemala and Mexico, such as connecting the city of Flores, in Guatemala’s Petén department, with Tenosique, a town in Mexico’s Tabasco state; and significant investment in the road networks in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Better roads in rural areas will improve access to markets and reduce inequality, according to Eclac. There are also plans for a 710km railway linking Ciudad Hidalgo in Mexico’s Chiapas state, to El Salvador’s La Libertad department, as well as a further 225km of branch lines.

The Atlantic Council, a US-based NGO, was among the organisations that hailed the plan in 2019, citing the impact of increased connectivity in boosting trade as well as governance and access to public services including public security. In April, the executive director of the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef), Henrietta Fore, reiterated the organisation’s support for the plan, calling it an “important opportunity to build needed infrastructure, spur economic activity, and address the root causes of migration”.

While the headline figure may sound impressive, it is important to put the US$45bn into perspective. By way of comparison, the ‘Tren Maya’ train project, a planned 1,525km inter-city railway in south-east Mexico, alone is expected to cost US$6.5bn-US$7bn. Infrastructure is expensive, which is one reason for the poor state of the region’s transport networks in the first place. Starting from such a low base means the level of investment required to make a significant difference to people on the ground is likely to be far higher than US$45bn.