El Salvador: Humanitarian Needs and Response Summary 2023

NEEDS OVERVIEW

El Salvador continues to deal with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and extreme weather events from 2020 which, combined with existing vulnerabilities, left an estimated 1.7 million people in need of assistance at the end of 2020.

Since then, rising food and fertiliser prices and the impact of seasonal rains have only compounded existing vulnerabilities. The effects of the war in Ukraine on global commerce is triggering increases in basic food basket and fertiliser prices, affecting people's ability to secure food and small- and medium-sized growers' contributions to the country's crop yields for 2022-2023 agricultural cycles.

Moreover, the National Civil Protection System responded to multiple weather emergencies throughout 2022, including Hurricane Bonnie in July, an exceptionally rainy September and Tropical Storm Julia in October.
These events brought about destructive flooding and landslides that led to loss of life, crops and homes and drove vulnerable people to shelters.

While El Salvador's homicide rate per every 100,000 inhabitants dropped to 18 in 2022, marking five consecutive years of declining homicide rates, the rate of violent deaths of women increased from 3.4 deaths per every 100,000 women in 2020 to 3.9 in 2021. Additionally, the number of returnees to the country has more than tripled from the 3,239 recorded between January and August 2021 to nearly 10,400 in the same period in 2022, creating a corresponding growth in needs.

There are now 1.1 million people in need of assistance, a decrease that owes, in part, to the availability of updated population data for analyses, the comparatively modest impact of emergencies in 2021 (barring the pandemic) and the positive effect of Government-led response efforts, as supported by national and international humanitarian partners.

Nevertheless, vulnerable populations in El Salvador, including women, children, indigenous people, LGBTIQ+ people and people with disabilities, still face significant needs that require a continued response that will be linked to sustainable development.