Central America Archive

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on countries’ risk exposure, contribution and response to climate change. Last month, the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change. After the vote, Environment Minister Edgar Gutierrez said that, despite being a small country, “Costa Rica showed the world that it has the courage to take bold and timely decisions to work for a sustainable development.” In an email interview, Mariel Yglesias, an environmental consultant, discusses Costa Rica’s climate change policy. WPR: What is Costa Rica’s risk exposure to climate change, what effects of climate […]

When Donald Trump won the Republican nomination for the presidency of the United States, many in Latin America started watching U.S. politics with a sharper interest. The tone, the content, the flamboyance and the egomania that Trump put on display during the campaign had a familiar ring. That’s because Latin Americans had seen similar personalities take the stage before—and seen them win. In the United States, populist politicians are new to most voters. In Latin America, they’re old hat. After Trump’s surprising upset in the Nov. 8 election, many Venezuelans, in particular, cast knowing glances at the U.S. electorate. Trump’s […]

On Nov. 6, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN, was re-elected to a third consecutive term, his fourth overall since 1984. There was little doubt about the outcome of the election given his overwhelming popularity and the lack of any viable opposition. Though Nicaragua’s characteristically high voter turnout was down to 68 percent, Ortega won 72 percent of the vote. But Ortega’s route to re-election has not been without controversy. Critics point to the erosion of democratic institutions and principles over his past two administrations. In 2010, the country’s Supreme Court cleared the […]

In a few days, voters will cast their ballots in a presidential election that has been marked by such unimaginable developments that if it were a work of fiction, publishers would reject it as far too implausible. No, we’re not talking about the United States. This election will take place in Nicaragua on Nov. 6. And we can already predict with absolute certainty that Daniel Ortega will be elected president. Again. Ortega’s name became known around the world in the 1980s as a leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a Marxist guerrilla group that toppled Nicaragua’s four-decade-long Somoza family […]

With the world’s three highest homicide rates since 2010, the Northern Triangle of Central America—the countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras—have become the fulcrum of regional insecurity. In addition to levels of violence surpassing those of countries at war, the region is a base for transnational drug cartels, the virulent youth gangs known as “maras,” and criminality ranging from mass deforestation to money laundering. The reverberations of this multifaced security crisis, particularly the waves of underage migrants fleeing north to the United States, has finally focused attention enough to forge a concerted response. In February 2015, the Obama administration […]