New Database Tracks U.S. Assistance to the Region by Country, Year, Program
Washington, DC— On October 16, President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence threatened via Twitter to cut off aid to Central America’s Northern Triangle region (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) if a caravan of more than 2,000 Honduran migrants isn’t stopped before it reaches the U.S.-Mexico border, a counterproductive reaction that would undermine efforts to address the root causes of migration, according to research and advocacy group Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).
In order to better track assistance to Central America, WOLA recently developed a searchable database detailing how much and what kind of assistance the U.S. government has been providing to these countries in recent years to help address the root causes of migration.
The database is part of WOLA’s Central America Monitor project, which tracks U.S. assistance to Central America and evaluates the progress that Central America is making in the fields of transparency, corruption, violence reduction, and justice and security reform through the use of a series of indicators.
The Central America Monitor database can be used to find answers to some of the following questions:
- How much funding is the United States providing to the Northern Triangle countries for border security and drug control?
- How much funding is the United States providing to help address the violence, inefficient justice systems, and poor policing that is driving people to migrate from the Northern Triangle region?
- What kinds of economic, rural development, and other “soft” aid programs would be affected should the U.S government cut aid?
- How does U.S. assistance for human rights programs in the Northern Triangle compare to security assistance to the region’s militaries to combat drug trafficking?
More resources:
- About the Central America Monitor project.
- WOLA press release: the migrant caravan highlights humanitarian problems in Central America.