“Even with the best agreements, the economy won’t recover until 2023
2019 Abril Nicaragua
I don’t bring good news and probably with what I’ll share I’ll add to the perception that things are much worse than we imagine in Nicaragua. I’ll...
“We need a strategy for transitioning to democracy”
2018 Marzo Nicaragua
It was anticipated in early 2016, the year of Nicaragua’s latest presidential elections, that Nicaragua’s relations with the United States might take...
The specter of the Nica Act is hovering over our already endangered economy
2017 Septiembre Nicaragua
I f you were to ask me how Nicaragua’s economy is doing today, I wouldn’t hesitate to say it’s in very good shape, with strong growth. But while economic...
A priest, a coop and a peasantry that regulates the elites
2017 Febrero Panamá
Which peasant cooperative in Central America is the strongest in trade? Which one is in charge of all stages of coffee processing—removing the pulp,...
The Nica Act puts us at high risk but must we repeat the Myth of Sisyphus?
2016 Octubre Nicaragua
The Nicaraguan government’s urgent need to replace Venezuela’s collapsed cooperation with more fiscal resources for its social spending and public investment...
Only human development produces economic development
2016 Marzo Nicaragua
Most economic analyses of Latin America in the 1980s can be summed up in the famous phrase coined by the UN’s Economic Commission on Latin America: “a...
Migrants: Disobedient in the market and citizens in consumption
2016 Febrero Centroamérica
The world of consumption has been assailed for both intellectual and moral reasons. It’s associated with a lack of wisdom and an abundance of vices....
A correct energy strategy must be aimed at Nicaragua’s development
2015 Marzo Nicaragua
Acountry’s total energy demand includes the needs related to transport, light, making machines run, cooking, etc., and is supplied by a variety of sources....
2045: Welcome to a fair future
2015 Marzo Internacional
Natural resource politics looks at who controls nature and how it is used. The answers are complex and full of contradictions. Institutional structures,...
There’ll be no development by ignoring Science
2014 Agosto Nicaragua
If impoverished countries are to progress towards a knowledge-based economy, the environment has to be conducive to innovation and the economic regime...
An interoceanic canal is an anachronistic view of development
2014 Abril Nicaragua
Nicaragua is recognized as a country of creative people. Intellectuals of the stature of poets Rubén Darío and Ernesto Cardenal and writers Sergio Ramírez...
We don’t want today’s tripartite system; the social economy is a major actor too
2014 Abril Nicaragua
First of all let me tell you a bit about myself, so you’ll know where I’m coming from. I own a farm in Masaya where I have nearly two hectares of oranges,...
There’s no such thing as a mine that doesn’t pollute
2014 Marzo Centroamérica
In the 16th century, when King Ferdinand of Spain was defining the priorities for the conquest of the New worl, he gave clear instructions: “Get the...
Democracy as a Universal Value
2013 Octubre Internacional
In the summer of 1997, I was asked by a leading Japanese newspaper what I thought was the most important thing that had happened in the 20th century....
The priority has to be enabling people to eat at least tortillas and beans all year
2013 Septiembre Nicaragua
Every day they tell us Nicaragua is having significant cconomic growth, recovery and improvement. Is this true of the rural sector? What do the rural...
Has the FMLN government been an economic failure?
2013 Septiembre El Salvador
Just months shy of the March 2014 presidential elections, every topic that appears in the public arena is quickly pounced on as an electoral campaign...
The canal and the illusion of development
2013 Agosto Nicaragua
Ongoing dynamic change in the productive and employment structures is crucial to a country’s development. In this process, the productive factors, including...
The Grand Canal: Dreams and smokescreens
2013 Junio Nicaragua
In his speech commemorating the birth of General César Augusto Sandino on May 18, President Daniel Ortega reported that during the Central American Presidents’...
What we know and don’t know about the Tumarín mega-project
2013 Mayo Nicaragua
Mendoza: We journalists go to where things are happening so we can talk to the people there
and give them a voice. We’re not satisfied with...
In six years the gold will all be gone
2013 Abril Nicaragua
I’m both the son and the grandson of miners, and the child of a mining tragedy. My grandfather, who was born in the indigenous Monimbó neighborhood...
How Nature’s rights are violated
2013 Marzo América Latina
What does the word forest conjure up for us? Some will say it’s a large group of trees. Others will add that it’s also the ferns, orchids, shrubs and...
Who’s responsible for the coffee rust plague and what can be done?
2013 Marzo Nicaragua
Every day now, the news leads with articles about the advance and consequences of the rust plague that’s
severely affecting coffee crops from Mexico...
LaGeo-Enel: Chronicle of an energy highjacking
2013 Marzo El Salvador
The New Year ushered in bad news for El Salvador: on January 8, the Paris Court of Appeals upheld an earlier ruling in favor of the Italian company Enel-Green...
The tax reform: As unjust as ever
2012 Diciembre Nicaragua
Nicaragua is about to sign a new three-year agreement with the International Monetary Fund. In exchange, the IMF has imposed—or “suggested”—three elements,...
We’re threatened by a tax reform from the catacombs
2012 Octubre Nicaragua
Ever since President Ortega took office in 2007, he’s been promising a profound change in the country’s
tax structure. But he ended his first five-year...
New clothes for the emperor... or is ALBA naked in Nicaragua?
2012 Octubre Nicaragua
In a lively bustling city there lived an emperor who used to spend all his money on elegant clothes. Not even his soldiers or meetings of the Council...
Drug trafficking now has muscle and is generating a lot of money
2012 Agosto Nicaragua
Central America is currently considered the most violent region in the world, which has to do with the active presence of organized crime in our countries....
The terms of today’s ecological debate
2012 Agosto Internacional
Around 11,000 years ago, the Earth’s temperature began to rise naturally, causing the progressive melting of the last great glacier age. A large part...
Green economy: A path to another possible world?
2012 Agosto Internacional
Twenty years after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Earth Summit or Río Summit and in Portuguese as Eco...
Are we prepared for “the perfect storm”?
2012 Julio Nicaragua
For weeks Nicaraguan politics has been dominated by the debate over the US government’s decision not to grant one of the two waivers it gives Nicaragua...
Coffee with the aroma of coops
2012 Julio Nicaragua
When in 1761 Scottish workers organized the first cooperative, selling oatmeal at discount prices and later including credit, savings, migration and...
Public-private partnerships: Another disguise for privatization
2012 Junio El Salvador
Public-private Partnership schemes “are what we need to push our country forward and overcome the crisis we’re facing,” said President Mauricio Funes...
The extractive capitalism of Latin America’s progressive camp
2012 Junio América Latina
In today’s Latin America, the leading agro-mineral exporting countries, including those engaged with the world’s leading mining and energy multi-national...
Self-employment is back
2012 Marzo Cuba
I arrived in Cuba at the end of January 2011. My flight from Miami was filled with Cubans carrying what looked like five or six times the alloted quota...
What can and should a new government do about the economy?
2011 Agosto Nicaragua
Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC) candidate Arnoldo Alemán is going around promising to create a million jobs in five years if elected. Edmundo...
The first horseman of neoliberalism: Drug traffickers
2011 Agosto Centroamérica
Political scientists identify three major political programs in Latin America: authoritarian, neoliberal and participatory. Authoritarian is the standard...
The four horsemen of neoliberalismo in the vacuum left by waged work
2011 Junio Centroamérica
Remember the 1970s and 80s? The military in Honduras, the death squads in El Salvador, the bloody death rattles of the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua...
Without structural changes there’ll be no sustainable reduction of rural poverty
2011 Mayo Nicaragua
Nicaragua proudly claims its identity as an agricultural country and boasts its exports of coffee, cheese and beans. But if we observe the public policies...
Societal Validation for Drug Trafficking Is Growing
2010 Diciembre Nicaragua
Aphenomenon has appeared on the Caribbean Coast, in Managua and different areas on the Pacific Coast that we consider extremely dangerous: societal legitimization...
The Two Main Electoral Issues Must Be Education and Fiscal Reform
2010 Noviembre Nicaragua
The most recent analyses by international finance organizations and socioeconomic institutions that study Central America are now sounding an optimistic...
On Social Security the IMF Has Little to Tell Us and a Lot to Be Told
2010 Septiembre Nicaragua
Everything that has to do with the subject of social security is highly sensitive for any society because it’s about life; it’s of interest to all human...
The Planet’s First Layer Is Seriously Injured
2010 Agosto Internacional
In the 20th century we went from an “empty” world to a “full” one. This entailed a real historical mutation, causing us to now speak of entering a new...
A Nicaraguan in the World Trade Organization
2010 Agosto Nicaragua
Three years ago a plane took me from the labyrinthine streets of Managua and landed me in Geneva, a multicultural, conservative city protected by mountains....
They Sow Promises, We Harvest Disillusion
2010 Mayo Nicaragua
Nicaragua was affected yet again last year by that recurring climatic phenomenon known as El Niño,
an ocean current that causes drought across Central...
Cargill: In the Belly of the Beast
2010 Mayo Nicaragua
Cargill is a privately held transnational company that has grown out of all measure to become one of the US corporations with the biggest profit volume...
The Incredible and Sad Story of The Tax Reform in Three Acts
2010 Abril Nicaragua
When we talk about tax reform in our country, we’re talking about an event that has happened every seven years for the past two decades: episodic changes...
The Economy Will Be Austere And Uncertain in 2010 and 2011
2010 Marzo Nicaragua
Unemployment is perhaps the main social and economic problem facing President Daniel Ortega as he enters the fourth of his five-year term and contemplates...
Zero Hunger: Development or Just Raindrops?
2010 Enero Nicaragua
The implementation of a food security and nutrition program is justified in Nicaragua, where 22% of the population was malnourished between 2003 and...
Pacific Rim Mining Company: The Kraken of Cabañas
2010 Enero El Salvador
El Salvador lies along Central America’s Gold Belt. According to First Point Minerals Corp., this valuable belt, which runs from Guatemala down into...
Do the “14 Families” Still Exist? Is There Even Still an Oligarchy?
2009 Julio El Salvador
Abysmal inequalities in social relations and in the structure of power have always marked the history of the republic of El Salvador. The term “oligarchy”...
Blow by Blow, Step by Step, The Global Crisis Is Hitting Us Hard
2009 Marzo Nicaragua
The main characteristic of this new world economic crisis is that it started in the North, in the developed
world. Unlike the most recent important...
Public Finances, and Thus the Common Good, Are Being Abused
2009 Enero Nicaragua
We’re going through an exceptional situation in Nicaragua right now. Eight new factors have appeared, or at least they’re happening for the first time...
Brief Notes on Foreign Cooperation At This Time of Uncertainty
2008 Diciembre Nicaragua
* According to the projections of the Medium-term
Budget Framework attached to the 2008 Budget bill, the foreign cooperation resources to be disbursed...
DR-CAFTA, ALBA and the Sustainable Development Trinity
2008 Diciembre Nicaragua
Like corner posts of a house, three pillars support sustainable development: the economy, society and the environment. We don’t always see all three...
The Splendor and Squalor of National Ecotourism
2008 Septiembre Nicaragua
The twin-volcano island of Ometepe, emerging out of the legendary Lake Cocibolca, also known as Lake Nicaragua, was nominated as Nicaragua’s candidate...
The Micro-Financing Institutions Are Politically Very Attractive
2008 Agosto Nicaragua
Micro-financing institutions emerged in Nicaragua and the rest of Latin America as one of the responses to the structural adjustment measures of the...
We Need More Action and Less Talk About the Food Crisis
2008 Junio Nicaragua
We hear about the food crisis around the world every day. We in the cooperative movement are working to educate our associates to understand this problem...
Whose Money Is It Anyway?
2008 Abril Centroamérica
Remittances donÂ’t come vacuum packed and canÂ’t be isolated in a test tube. They are conditioned by a socio-political environment and come with a cultural...
Sixteen Years Lost in Five Agreements with the IMF
2008 Abril Nicaragua
In September 1991, Nicaragua signed an 18-month “stand-by” program with the IMF in its first agreement with that institution after the FSLN’s 1990 electoral...
Remittances Are Far More Than A Development Panacea
2008 Marzo Centroamérica
Pisto, plata, lapas, tucanes, tejas, tostones, güevo, chichimosca, palos, tucos, fichas, hojas de repollo, barbas, luz verde, reales, búfalos, daimes,...
Indignant (and Substantiated) Clues To the CENI Fraud and Renegotiation
2008 Marzo Nicaragua
The Ortega government is accusing Liberal opposition leader Eduardo Montealegre of responsibility for the whole fraud related to the Central Bank’s Negotiable...
Gambling Away Our Future with Decisions We’re Making Today
2007 Noviembre Nicaragua
A little over a month ago macro-economy specialists were expressing their satisfaction in the media: we had finally come to an agreement with the International...
From Citizen-as-Ward to Citizen-as-Client With No Solutions in Sight
2007 Julio Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s four governments in the last 27 years have applied two openly contrasting economic models: one based loosely on a planned economy and the...
Rural Development Can’t Be Resolved in Secret
2007 Mayo Nicaragua
I’m talking as a farmer and a representative of a good part of Nicaragua’s rural cooperatives. We’re active farmers, convinced that our heads aren’t...
We Can’t Go on Paying Our Teachers Miserable Salaries
2007 Mayo Nicaragua
The day after the new government took office, Education Minister Miguel de Castilla declared that he had abolished the school autonomy system set up...
The Economic Power Groups’ Influence and Control Today
2007 Abril Centroamérica
It’s no secret that the Central American power groups have historically exercised significant influence on our societies and economies. What is new...
Navigating the Contradiction Between democracy and Social Justice
2007 Abril Nicaragua
I’ve observed that in the last 16 years of neoliberal ad-ministrations, the Nicaraguan state has used a government plus transnational corporations formula....
A Portrait of the Region’s Large Economic Groups
2007 Marzo Centroamérica
Central America’s economic groups are increasingly operating on a regional and international scale and the transnational corporations with activities...
The Government Wasn’t Able to Change the Budgetary Policy
2007 Marzo Nicaragua
Although the national budget bill for 2007 was only sent to the National Assembly a few days ago and has still been seen only by the country’s legislators,...
The Concentration of Power: More Integration and Inequality
2007 Febrero Centroamérica
Over the last 30 years the Central American region’s economies and societies have experienced a dramatic change influenced by four factors: armed conflicts...
What Must We Defend in Negotiations with the IMF?
2007 Febrero Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s three-year program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the framework of the agreement on Financial Service for Poverty Reduction...
Politics and Energy: Now and for the Future
2006 Octubre América Latina
In probably no other region of the world are energy and politics so closely related as in Latin America. For a state to have control of a petroleum company...
Are We Ready to Leap Out of Poverty In a Single Bound?
2006 Septiembre Nicaragua
This year’s electoral campaign officially kicked off on August 19. Under the slogan “Nicaragua united will triumph,” the Sandinista National Liberation...
Inequality, Environmental Neglect And Apathetic Democracy
2006 Septiembre Centroamérica
One of the main objectives of Central America’s political systems is to consolidate the democratic processes begun in the late 1980s and early 1990s....
Maquilas, Fast Food, Casinos, Cells: Serpents in Paradise
2006 Marzo Nicaragua
Over a century ago, in his novel Hard Times, Charles Dickens described the thoughts of the businessman Bounderby: “Now, you have heard a lot of...
“The Problem Isn’t Lack of Resources; It’s Fiscal Inequity and Legalized Pillage”
2006 Marzo Nicaragua
Several acute social crises are being played out in the country right now. One of the two main ones is the strike of public-sector doctors and other...
“Our Electricity System Is One of Our Political Class’ Great Failures”
2005 Octubre Nicaragua
When you follow the thread of what’s happening in the Nicaraguan electricity sector, you realize we’re facing one of the greatest failures of the political...
“CAFTA Will Be Like a Brand-Name Hurricane Mitch”
2005 Septiembre Nicaragua
The Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States (now known as DR-CAFTA following the inclusion of the Dominican Republic) contained...
The Energy Crisis Explained
2005 Junio Nicaragua
According to data of the United Nations’ Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLA), updated in 2003, 72% of Nicaragua’s electrical energy capacity...
Corruption Exposes the Free Market Myth
2005 Junio El Salvador
ARENA governments have always boasted about transparency, so much so that the concept now forms part of the established political discourse. Nontheless,...
“We Must All Demand the Restructuring of the Domestic Debt”
2005 Marzo Nicaragua
When we in the Civil Coordinator began to research and reflect on the national budget, some found such macroeconomic issues too complicated and...
What Is Morally Unjust Cannot Be Economically Correct
2005 Marzo Internacional
What can this generation, working together, each and all of us, do? We are not powerless individuals; acting together, we have the power to shape history,...
Clean Up Your Computer
2005 Enero Internacional
Computers are an integral part of everyday life. Thirty years ago, it would have been hard to imagine their centrality in everyday life. Now, it’s...
Are Free Trade Agreements Free? Are They Development Strategies?
2004 Noviembre Internacional
Is the liberalization of international trade a desirable goal in principle? Opinions abound and are contradictory, but it would unquestionably be desirable...
Cup of Excellence, Fair Trade, Organic Coffee
2004 Septiembre Nicaragua
When coffee prices plunged in 2001, the crisis generated widespread panic: two banks went under, others teetered on the brink, farms were embargoed left,...
An Economy Without Ethics Means a Continent Without Development
2004 Junio América Latina
In his small treasure chest titled On Ethics and Economics, published in 1987, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics Amartya Sen referred to the serious...
Through the Looking Glass: Images of the Agricultural Frontier
2004 Abril Nicaragua
Most of us tend to understand the agricultural frontier as that none-too-thin “red line” separating forest from crops. And we understand its advance...
Sébaco’s Sweatshop: Dreams, Realities and Frustrations
2004 Abril Nicaragua
The only thing that makes maquilas different than the sweatshops producing for their home market in any country is that maquilas are offshore....
Globalization and Development Seen from Below
2004 Marzo Nicaragua
Nicaragua cambia—Nicaragua’s changing—was President Arnoldo Alemán’s slogan during his five-year administration (January 1997-January 2002), and...
Enron et al—The Fiasco of the New US-style
2004 Marzo Internacional
From the late 1990s until 2001, American capitalism was held up as the model. The US President and the chairman of the Federal Reserve did not hesitate...
A Farewell to Pigs…Changes in the National Diet
2004 Enero Nicaragua
One thing’s for sure, there’s a big difference between eating well and not eating well. Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you who you are… not to mention...
Nestor Avendaño: Where Is the State’s Role in the National Development Plan?
2003 Noviembre Nicaragua
It is now being announced that in December Nicaragua will finally reach that elusive culmination point in the initiative for highly indebted poor countries...
CAFTA: “We’re Defining Whether We’ll Commit Suicide or Die a Natural Death”
2003 Octubre Nicaragua
The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is testing our economic organizations’ capacity to make technical and political proposals that can...
Central American-US Free Trade Agreement: Opportunity or Nightmare for Nicaragua?
2003 Septiembre Nicaragua
Kenneth Hoadley, a professional with no leftist leanings, is the rector of the El Zamorano Pan-American Agricultural School, a prestigious agronomy and...
Maquilas Are Like Aspirin: Temporary Pain Relief but No Cure
2003 Junio Nicaragua
Although it is generally thought that Nicaragua’s maquila sector started up under Violeta Chamorro’s government, these sweatshops, which essentially...
The Chronicle of a Reform Foretold
2003 Abril Nicaragua
The Technical Committee consisted of José Luis Medal, Sergio Santamaría, Róger Cerda, Néstor Avendaño, Ricardo Zambrana and me. Our group decided to...
Will Clusters Bring Development?
2003 Enero Nicaragua
Is the year-long political cataclysm that culminated with Alemán being stripped of his immunity and sentenced in court really coming to an end, freeing...
Recession in 2002, Growth in 2003?
2002 Diciembre Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s economic performance fell in the third quarter of 2002 for the third successive period in the year. Although the figures for the final quarter...
Twelve Days In a Concentration Camp
2002 Octubre Nicaragua
Is pent 12 days working in one of the export assembly plants—known as maquiladoras or maquilas—in Managua’s Las Mercedes industrial park....
Part 2: The Economic Scene: The Unpayable Internal Debt Is the Budget’s "Black Hole"
2002 Octubre Nicaragua
The National Assembly debate on the bill for the 2003 budget sent by the executive is scheduled to get underway in mid-October. This budget reflects...
The World Coffee Crisis: Is Vietnam to Blame?
2002 Mayo Centroamérica
On May 24, 2001, 14 young Mexican immigrants died in the Arizona desert while attempting to enter the United States to find work. Of those, 6 were bankrupted...
Dual Societies: A Ticking Bomb
2001 Octubre Centroamérica
In recent visits to Nicaragua and El Salvador, I have come to understand more keenly than ever that the problem of many Latin American countries is that...
Which Party Has the Best Agricultural Development Plan?
2001 Septiembre Nicaragua
Will the next government be able to propose and implement an agrarian policy that really responds to the sector’s problems, in particular one that favors...
Protected Areas and Natural Resources: With or Without People?
2001 Septiembre Nicaragua
In 1983, the Sandinista government decreed the creation of a natural reserve in the San Cristóbal-Casitas volcanic complex to protect what was left of...
The Chronicle of Coffee: History, Responsibility and Questions
2001 Agosto Nicaragua
In the early morning of August 18, 1881, exactly 120 years ago, nearly three thousands indigenous people armed with bow and arrows and shotguns and calling...
Ways Out of the Rural Crisis: Reforest, Educate and Don’t Steal
2001 Junio Nicaragua
Almost two years ago, having analyzed my economic situation as a producer, I decided to give up agriculture. I was deeply in debt and couldn’t find a...
Economic Forecasting in an Election Year
2001 Marzo Nicaragua
What will the next government inherit?What economic panorama do we foresee for 2001? It’s a predictable picture, but not a very pretty one....
Agriculture to the Emergency Ward: Intensive Care Required
2001 Enero Nicaragua
As the year 2000 ended, spokespeople for Nicaragua’s Central Bank presented their figures on national economic growth with the usual hurrahs that only...
The Banco de Café Scandal: A Cure that Nearly Killed the Patient
2000 Noviembre Nicaragua
Until late in the afternoon, November 17 seemed like any other day in the imposing new Managua headquarters of the Banco de Café (Bancafé). There was...
Summing Up Hurricane Mitch: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
1999 Diciembre Nicaragua
One year after Mitch, that mega-hurricane that changed the lives of so many thousands of Central Americans, the activities to rehabilitate what it destroyed...
"Our Tax Policy is Regressive, Terrorist and Unimaginative"
1999 Noviembre Nicaragua
By looking at fiscal policy, one can understand, analyze and interpret a country's socioeconomic life. A brief look at the past 30 years of Nicaraguan...
The "Solution" of the Rich
1999 Septiembre Internacional
Some 17 million signatures collected worldwide to demand the cancellation of the foreign debt owed by poor countries were handed over to the heads of...
Several Key Questions
1999 Septiembre Internacional
Many different strategies have been developed in an attempt to resolve the foreign debt crisis since the problem first emerged in the early 1980s. From...
Five Basic Theses on the Third World Foreign Debt
1999 Septiembre Internacional
The following five theses on the third world foreign debt problem are based on the crisis that began in 1997 and the experiences of the 1980s. The main...
A Way Out of the Economic Growth Trap
1999 Enero Internacional
The limits of growth: A quick look backThe first Club of Rome report, with the now-historic title, "The Limits of Growth," was published 25...
What Is the Obscure Object of The Bank Superintendency Fight?
1998 Julio Nicaragua
BANKERS TEND TO BE SEEN AS GRAY, CIRCUMSPECT PEOPLE WHO ONLY COME TO PUBLIC attention in exceptional cases. For the past two months, Nicaragua has seen...
Central America's Granary: Reflections from Europe
1998 Mayo Centroamérica
...
Is Being the Granary of Central America a Good Thing?
1998 Abril Nicaragua
IN HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ARNOLDO ALEMÁN REPEATEDLY PROMISED THAT HE would make Nicaragua "Central America's granary" again. Nicaragua's return to...
Multilateral Investment Agreement: Friend of the Rich, Enemy of Nations
1998 Marzo Internacional
FROM THE MOMENT IT STOPPED BEING A "SECRET," the proposal for a Mltilateral Investment Agreement (MIA) was questioned from all sides. From the South,...
Financial Crisis in Asia: What It Can Teach Us
1998 Marzo Nicaragua
THE ASIAN FINANCIAL CRISIS REFERRED TO AS "YELLOW FEVER," WHICH IS SPREADING throughout the world, forces us to ask ourselves what is causing the instability...
On the Death of BANADES (r.i.p.)
1998 Marzo Nicaragua
The poor person is despicable because of his poverty.
If a poor person is seen sitting around
they say he's lazy.
If he takes a drink, he is...
Banks, Mini-Banks and Rural Producers
1998 Enero Nicaragua
A NEW PRIVATE BANK OPENS YEARLY IN NICARAGUA, JUST LIKE IN OTHER COUNTRIES. Financing is a very lucrative sector for those with money to invest. Yet...
Forestry Plan Backfires
1997 Septiembre Nicaragua
When technicians from an NGO came to his community with a reforestation program, Pedro Ruiz, a small producer in the south of Masaya, told them, "You're...
Maquila*: The Swallow That Lays Golden Eggs
1997 Septiembre Honduras
Maquila*: refers to the type of foreign-owned assembly plants set up in low-wage third world countries that put together products, mostly clothing,...
Coffe and Sesame: Mirrors on the Solution
1997 Julio Nicaragua
The new tax law and the debate it unleashed demonstrate once again how hard it is for Nicaragua to find agreement among all the socioeconomic actors...
Is a Pro-Agriculture Policy Possible?
1997 Junio Nicaragua
On april 3, the liberal government presented a set of measures for the 1997-98 agricultural cycle that sought to lay the foundation for making agricultural...
Whither US Solidarity with Nicaragua?
1997 Abril Nicaragua
The Sandinista revolution triggered a formidable social and political solidarity movement in the 1980s in many countries. One of the largest movements...
For Life and Against Neoliberalism
1997 Febrero América Latina
Dear Friends:
We Provincial Superiors of the Society of Jesus in Latin America and the Caribbean, following the call of General Congregation...
The Coffee that Comes Out on a Mule
1996 Septiembre Nicaragua
Traveling through the country, we find many areas with no bank branches or agencies. Small producers have nowhere to go to get credit. Even if they...
Bridging the Bridge: ESAF and the Future
1996 Abril Nicaragua
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) paid its ordinary semi annual visit to Nicaragua at the end of February, this time to evaluate the implementation...
Privatizing TELCOR: Not the Only or Best Solution
1995 Diciembre Nicaragua
Comments on the proposal by the TELCOR National Workers Federation, "Enrique Schmidt Cuadra," titled, "TELCOR: Supporting Stability and Development,"...
Foreign Debt: A New Face
1995 Noviembre Nicaragua
In the past few months, Nicaragua's foreign debt has returned to the short list of national concerns. envío has already published two articles on this...
How Hummingbirds Are Raised
1995 Octubre Nicaragua
They say there are no savings in Nicaragua, and that this is why we are a poor country. Since there are no savings, we can't invest and thus can't grow...
One Year into ESAF: What Must Still Be Adjusted?
1995 Septiembre Nicaragua
As much as we have criticized the content and implementation of the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF), we must accept it as necessary and...
A Parade of Images in Paris
1995 Agosto Nicaragua
In June 1995, a high level Nicaraguan government delegation went to Paris for the second time this year to meet with representatives from the international...
Banana Workers Put Shell on Trial
1995 Abril Nicaragua
In Galveston County, Texas' District Court 212, one case is astounding US justice because of the magnitude and seriousness of the accusations. Over...
The Economic and the Social: Divorced in Copenhagen
1995 Abril Internacional
With March's world summit on social development in Copenhagen, a new chapter is added to the series of planetary spectaculars on social issues that the...
Central America's Challenge: Produce And Participate
1995 Febrero Centroamérica
Asymmetric globalization, the new world economic system that is capping the long exploitation of the South, imprinted itself on many facets of Central...
Top Down Economic Plan Designed for Few
1995 Enero Panamá
With a banner headline befitting top level bureaucratic documents "Public Policies for Integral Development: Social Development with Economic Efficiency"...
A Needed Renewal
1994 Noviembre Nicaragua
Most economic analyses of Latin America in the 1980s can be summed up in the famous phrase coined by the UN's Economic Commission on Latin America: "a...
World Bank and IMF to the Stand
1994 Octubre Internacional
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), two institutions targeted by growing...
The Foreign Debt: Catastrophe or Oportunity?
1994 Agosto Nicaragua
Although both Nicaragua's government and its population is aware that the country is up to its eyebrows in debt, very few understand the true magnitude...
Seven Sins Against Women and Development
1994 Mayo Centroamérica
According to the United Nations, 75% of the world's population survives on only 15% of the world's wealth. In the 41 poorest countries of the world,...
NAFTA: More than just Free Trade
1994 Enero México
Discussions about NAFTA tend to atomize its complex and multiple variables. If these discussions simply obeyed epistemological vices or academic deficiencies,...
Welcome to the Free Trade Zone
1994 Enero Nicaragua
Leaving the Managua airport, visitors are immediately greeted by a huge sign in English declaring "Las Mercedes Industrial Free Zone Welcomes You to...
León: Paralyzed Production, Paralyzed Imaginations
1993 Diciembre Nicaragua
For 40 years León lived for cotton. But cotton is no longer the solution. Its production is not profitable, it does not attract investment. It is...
Why are More People Poor?
1993 Diciembre Internacional
The Conference on Social Development and Poverty, in preparation for the World Summit for Social Development to be held in Denmark in 1995, was held...
Would the IMF Accept a More Productive Adjustment?
1993 Noviembre Nicaragua
It is very easy, and always fashionable, to criticize the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The hard part is to respond to people's...
The Farmer Program: an Alternative
1993 Junio Nicaragua
Nicaragua's economic growth depends on the reactivation of agricultural production. It also depends in great measure on an increase in export production.
The...
Reactivation: The Last Chance
1993 Junio Nicaragua
Except in a very small orthodox and officialist circle, all Nicaraguans speak today of the unbearable economic crisis and the need to find alternatives....
Foreign AID: Where have all the Dollars Gone?
1993 Junio Nicaragua
Shortly before Minister of the Presidency Antonio Lacayo's trip to the Paris Club meeting on April 2, everything seemed to be going against the Nicaraguan...
Another day older and Deeper in Debt
1993 Abril Panamá
Since 1980, payment on its public debt has become the Panamanian government's number one priority. The final version of the Ford Plan recently reaffirmed...
The National Dialogue--What's in Store?
1993 Enero El Salvador
The January 16, 1992 peace accords commissioned the installation of an economic and social forum for dialogue known as the Concertación Forum. Its objective:...
Nicaragua's New Economic Measures: Reactivation Solidarity?
1993 Enero Nicaragua
Again, the Chamorro government has asked Nicaragua's poor to make sacrifices in return for the promise of a better future, this time incorporating into...
Why Social Conflict?
1993 Enero Nicaragua
The growing conflict in November and December was directly attributable to the government's economic policies, whose negative impact on the popultion...
A National Project: Necessary but Unattainable?
1992 Diciembre Nicaragua
The political and economic crisis Nicaragua is living through gives urgency to the search for a clearly democratic and economically just national project...
Economic Takeoff: The Little Train that Couldn’t
1992 Octubre Nicaragua
The political paralysis caused by continuous disputes between the far right, the government and the FSLN has not interfered with the implementation of...
The Labor Code: Workers’ Rights vs. Economic Recovery?
1992 Septiembre Nicaragua
Unemployment in Nicaragua has reached the highest levels ever registered. Estimates vary according to the source, but the government, business sector...
A New Kind of Development—Or a New Face on the Old?
1992 Junio Guatemala
With the international United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) just around the bend, it seems appropriate to take a close...
How Sugar Workers Think
1992 Mayo Nicaragua
Numbering some 13,000 full-time and seasonal laborers, sugar workers are the single most important industrial work force in Nicaragua. In the last two...
A New National Accord: Another Pact Between Leaders?
1992 Mayo Nicaragua
After months of conflict between various popular organizations and the Nicaraguan government, there is talk, once again, of concertación and the need...
The Foreign Debt: Lengthening the Chain?
1992 Abril Nicaragua
Late last year, the Nicaraguan government emerged from debt negotiations with 16 capitalist nations, known as the Paris Club, cheering victory and a...
Neoliberalism in Central America: More Than an Economic Plan
1992 Abril Centroamérica
World Bank-imposed structural adjustment programs have now become so prevalent in Latin America that the Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLA)...
The Economic Plan’s Feet of Clay
1992 Marzo Nicaragua
In our first analysis of the Lacayo Plan, the central issue was whether the Nicaraguan economy, both rural and urban, would find itself at a dead end...
The Economic Plan’s Feet of Clay
1991 Diciembre Nicaragua
In our first analysis of the Lacayo Plan, the central issue was whether the Nicaraguan economy, both rural and urban, would find itself at a dead end...
Privatization: Left, Right and Center
1991 Noviembre Nicaragua
Privatization has become a key element of the Chamorro government's economic program. In interviews with envío, Gilberto Cuadra, president of...
Just the Facts A Poor Country, Part II*
1991 Noviembre Nicaragua
There are five indicators of unmet basic needs: inadequate housing, overcrowding, insufficient services, low education levels and high economic dependence....
Just the Facts: A Poor Country, Part I*
1991 Octubre Nicaragua
In 1985, 63.5% of Nicaraguan households and 69.4% of its population were defined as poor, 22.7% of them living in a state of poverty and 16.1% in a state...
The FSLN National Congress
1991 Septiembre Nicaragua
1. Statistics on the 501 Elected Delegates
2. Statistics on the 98 Elected Sandinista Assembly Members.
3. New Ethics and Honor Commission
4. International...
Economic Stabilization--Stop Inflation, and Then What?
1991 Agosto Nicaragua
Presidential Minister Antonio Lacayo announced the government's sweeping economic plan on March 3 as "monetary stabilization at any cost today, economic...
AID/FISE: Solving the Unemployment Problem?
1991 Julio Nicaragua
The Emergency Social Investment Fund (FISE) has been celebrated in the pro-government press as the solution to Nicaragua's unemployment problems. While...
AIDS in Nicaragua
1991 Julio Nicaragua
Ten years ago, on June 5, 1981, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta published a short report on an unusual outbreak of a strain of pneumonia among...
How to Get Foreign Aid: Making the Poor Pay Isn’t Enough
1991 Mayo Nicaragua
For the third time in nine months, the Chamorro government went before the international lending agencies—most importantly, the powerful International...
Rural Workers Fight to Become Owners
1991 Mayo Nicaragua
Shortly before the UNO government moved to woo international lending agencies by implementing economic "shock" measures, it started making good on its...
Privatization to the Workers— Issues and Actions
1991 Marzo Nicaragua
Privatization of state enterprises has been a cornerstone of UNO's economic program dating back to the pre-election period. It is also a key element...
A Year of UNO Economic Policies: The Rich Get Richer…
1991 Marzo Nicaragua
Last year was characterized by a resurgence of the hyperinflation that had been partially controlled in 1989 and by a new drop in the Gross Domestic...
National Budged
1991 Marzo Nicaragua
This table shows the Presidency's proposed 1991 budget compared to 1990 spending and to the 1991 budget approved in December by the National Assembly.
##1991-10-116-03-02-1-en##
*...
UNO's Court-Packing Plan
1991 Marzo Nicaragua
In the three years between the adoption of Nicaragua's new Constitution and Violeta Chamorro's election, the opposition constantly called for the freshly...
The UNO Economic Plan: Is There a Popular Alternative?
1990 Noviembre Nicaragua
The official concertation forum was called to order before live television coverage on September 20. The UNO government's economic team and representatives...
Antonio Lacayo. Takes the Stand
1990 Agosto Nicaragua
The following are extracts of an interview with Minister of the Presidency Antonio Lacayo on the state television program “Democracia en Marcha,” July...
After 100 Days: Same Economic Script, New Lead Actors
1990 Agosto Nicaragua
In its first hundred days, President Violeta Chamorro's administration racked up a major success and a major failure. Its success was to demobilize...
The Economy: Help on the Way?
1990 Julio Nicaragua
“The dollars are here,” declared Central Bank Minister Francisco Mayorga, patting his briefcase as he returned in early June from a special meeting of...
Two Faces of UNO
1990 Julio Nicaragua
Since the UNO coalition came to power two event-packed months ago, views on what the new government actually represents have swung widely. During the...
UNO's Balance of Power—On a Tight Rope
1990 Junio Nicaragua
The internal workings and struggles of UNO are a labyrinth of political interests, ideological differences and personal rivalries. At times, the different...
The Fight Against Inflation: A Challenge for the Months Ahead
1989 Diciembre Nicaragua
After three months of holding under 10%, inflation crept slightly over the government's one-digit goal in October, at 10.2%. The combination of economic...
Revolution Seeks Foreign Investors
1989 Noviembre Nicaragua
As part of its search for resources to confront the economic crisis, Nicaragua has launched a campaign to attract foreign investment. But, unlike the...
Two Voices from the Private Sector
1989 Octubre Nicaragua
Interviews with Gilberto Cuadra and Gladys Bolt
At the beginning of 1989, the Nicaraguan government launched both a new phase of the economic...
A Setback to Reforms
1989 Agosto Nicaragua
"The prices went through the roof again," said a young woman doing her weekly shopping in Managua's Roberto Huembes market. "I thought it was finally...
Teachers’ Strike: US Fans Flames of Discontent
1989 Julio Nicaragua
On May 25 the Nicaraguan government expelled two US diplomats, accusing them of collaborating with the opposition to promote destabilizing actions....
Inflation Drops, Planting Begins
1989 Junio Nicaragua
May is planting time in Nicaragua, and the government has been doing all it can to ensure that as much planting as possible takes place. With the unstable...
Making the Economy Our Own: Interviews with UNAG Leaders
1989 Junio Nicaragua
The National Union of Farmers and Cattle Ranchers (UNAG) is one of the strongest and most outspoken organizations in the country. Including nearly 125,000...
Economic Reforms: Taking Effect?
1989 Abril Nicaragua
"Sale: 2 pieces, 4,000 córdobas," reads the sign in the Tip-Top Fried Chicken restaurant in Managua's Centroamérica shopping center. Prices coming...
Just The Facts
1989 Marzo Nicaragua
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...
Sandinistas Surviving In a Percentage Game
1988 Diciembre Nicaragua
There's a generation gap in Managua and it yawns widest between the young and old men in the city's most affluent suburbs. Is this a split between father...
More on the economy—And More Needs to Be Done
1988 Noviembre Nicaragua
On September 30th the córdoba was devalued by 78% and the prices of imported fuels went up by a comparable amount, leading to price increases across...
Economic Reform: Taking It to the Streets
1988 Abril Nicaragua
Ten years after the anti-Somocista insurrections of 1978, Nicaragua has begun what could become an economic insurrection with a truly grassroots quality.
Economic...
Energy in Nicaragua: The Problems and the Prospects
1988 Enero Nicaragua
Frequent power outages, contra sabotage against electrical plants and towers, gas rationing and periodic long lines at gas stations, technical...
Rural Workers Confront the Economic Crisis
1987 Mayo Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s agrarian structure, traditionally geared to export crops—coffee, cotton, sugar—that require seasonal labor, created a great number of agricultural...
The Challenge of Providing Supplies
1984 Diciembre Nicaragua
Achievements and Limitations in the Consumer Protection Law
“There’s starvation in Nicaragua… Managua is a city of hunger and shortages, where people...
Additional Comments By Xavier Gorostiaga
1981 Octubre Nicaragua
There are many causes for the economic emergency in which we find ourselves. One of them is an external cause – the foreign exchange. We have imports...
Some Aspects Of Nicaragua’s Economy
1981 Octubre Nicaragua
I. To Satisfy Basic Needs.Our strategy differs from other models of economic development whose first priority is to establish a model of accumulation....
Decapitalization
1981 Julio Nicaragua
Introduction:The Nicaraguan government, from its inception, has been described as pragmatic rather than ideological. Pragmatic is the word...