The current government assumed power in June 2004, in which El Salvador began a new and fruitful period of work in public youth policies.  The most outstanding elements in this new period are the creation of the Youth Secretariat (that possess ministerial rank and is located in the Presidency of the Republic) and the design and approval of the 2005-2015 National Youth Plan Proposal, located among the major priorities of the present government.

For its effective design, they considered the numerous past achievements and created a systematic consultation with all public and private institutions related to youth dynamics, including youths themselves. In this sense, certain achieved goals were considered in the Advising Board Against Violence, proposals elaborated in other Advising Boards urged by the Supreme Court of Justice (with support from UNICEF), and proposals formulated by FLACSO, also with support from UNICEF, within the framework of the recent electoral campaign.

At the same time, they designed and implemented important promotional programs related to adolescents and youth.  The programs that stood out were those implemented with the support of the National Council of Public Security (in the area of the prevention of youth violence) of the European Union, those developed in the local scope with support from GTZ, and those implemented by certain State entities (especially the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education).  Other important programs were those implemented by independent institutes such as the area of professional training by INSAFORP, the area of young women by ISDEMU, and the area of youth in trouble with the law by ISNA.

Recently, the preliminary results of the 2005 First National Youth Survey appeared publicly.  They were polled by the Youth Secretariat with support from UNDP.  The execution of fieldwork was done by UNIMER Private Consultants.  Furthermore, FLACSO and other specialized academic entitities have been developing different studies that allow and will allow them to use precise and rigorous profiles to determine the necessities, expectations, proposals and demands of young people throughout the country.

Without a doubt, this national experience set forth excellent conditions to develop the future dynamically, making it possible to achieve significant impacts in the targeted population, as well as important programmatic and institutional learning in terms of “best practices”. Thus, within the framework of the National Youth Plan, work has been done to create a monitoring and evaluation system, which provides feedback to work done in this area, and, at the same time, systemize the experience to extract corresponding lessons learned.

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