The great challenge

Abstract

(Synthesis of the book of illusion to disenchantment, economic reform in El Salvador 1989-2009). Twenty years ago, the belief almost generalized in a particular way in Latin America, was that the option in the face of secular underdevelopment had to be sought in the adoption of a new economic model, in the style and similarity that several Southeast Asian countries had followed in both previous decades. The real and financial imbalances and the meager performance of the economies during the so-called "lost decade" set the tone for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to start promoting the first stabilization and adjustment programs, which they would later find in the consensus Washington, a kind of coercive element when linked to what has been called cross-conditionality. El Salvador was part of that scenario, although the armed conflict introduced in its case elements of atypicality, therefore, the economic model adopted by the country during the first Sand government, was not a national invention.