El Salvador
El Salvador, the smallest country in Central America, has the region's third-largest economy and fertile land that keeps nearly one in five Salvadoran workers in farming. But poverty rates are above 30 percent. The country is seeking to boost agricultural exports as a way of creating more jobs and income opportunities for the rural poor. TechnoServe is helping farmers in key sectors to sell to these more demanding markets. More broadly, we are also running entrepreneurship programs that empower people to create thriving businesses in a variety of sectors.
TechnoServe/El Salvador
Avenida Las Buganvillas N° 131
Colonia San Francisco
San Salvador, El Salvador
Tel: 503-2-240-0151
Fax: 503-2-240-0514
tne.es@telesal.net
Country Director: Roberto Vega Lara
Established: 1975
Practices: Building Businesses and Industries ; Developing Entrepreneurs
Sectors:
El Salvador
Grounds for Success
TechnoServe is helping Central American coffee groups such as El Salvador's BEXCAFE to increase rural incomes by tapping into premium coffee markets.
El Salvador
A Craft Business Blooms
El Salvador's business plan competition helps a committed entrepreneur to expand her handicraft business, bringing new economic opportunities to women in a struggling rural community.
Developing Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship Training
TechnoServe has run four business camps over the past four years to promote entrepreneurship among the country's rural youth. The six-day BizCamp™ program has trained 72 young men and women in business basics and allowed them to compete for cash prizes to fund their businesses.
Key supporter: Citigroup Foundation
Building Businesses and Industries
Agriculture& Agribusiness › Coffee
TechnoServe is helping a group of coffee groups become more profitable by growing and selling more lucrative specialty coffee. Using tools such as traceability software and quality management systems, our business advisors are training them in industry best practices that they hope will inspire other producers. One of the core cooperatives has seen its production of specialty coffee grow six-fold over several years, with a proportional increase in jobs, and a near doubling of their employees' wages.
Key supporter: Inter-American Development Bank
Agriculture& Agribusiness › Dairy
TechnoServe, with financing from the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC), is helping a group of farmers and processing plants in northern El Salvador to gain access to higher-paying export markets by improving the milking process, modernizing plants and establishing links with buyers. This is expected to create nearly 1,000 new jobs over the next two years. The program will emphasize two areas: improving opportunities for women and promoting environmentally-friendly farming and processing practices. We are also helping dairy farmers improve the productivity of their cows by producing low-cost, high-quality feed.
Key supporters: FOMILENO, the Salvadoran Ministry of Agriculture and Husbandry, Semillas Cristiani Burkar, PROCAFE, Chemonics and Unión de Productores Agropecuarios (UPA)
Agriculture & Agribusiness › Other
TechnoServe is helping small businesses export ethnic products to the many Salvadorans living in the United States. We are working with nine companies to improve their production, processing and export of traditional products such as pastries, frozen fruits, cheeses and other food items. The program is also benefiting rural farmers who produce the source materials needed by these companies. TechnoServe is also helping Salvadorans capitalize on remittances, which account for 15 to 20 percent of the GDP, but are rarely used to fuel the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the key drivers of economic development. TechnoServe has partnered with Microfinance International Corporation (MFIC) and two Salvadoran microfinance institutions to identify ways to leverage remittances for this purpose. In the pilot phase, TechnoServe is working with remittance-receiving business owners who are seeking credit to expand their businesses. TechnoServe is helping to facilitate relationships with local lending institutions using remittance money as collateral to secure loans. Early results are promising.
Key supporters: El Salvador Ministry of Foreign Affairs and United States Department of Agriculture (for export program); International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) (for remittance program)
