.jpg?w=800&resize=800,500&ssl=1 "Loreto Ferrer")
National dialogue processes commonly emerge amid periods of polarization or institutional paralysis, when various stakeholders must establish channels of communication to reach basic consensus. In Latin America, these efforts have often received support from international organizations that offer methodological guidance, contextual assessments, and facilitation spaces.
In El Salvador, one such initiative recently entered a new phase following the conclusion of the mandate of UN Special Envoy Benito Andión. At that point, the process moved beyond the phase of direct UN support and came to rely more heavily on national actors. Within that technical team, Loreto Ferrer participated in institutional support efforts and in communicating this transition toward a phase with greater civil society involvement.
The origin of the dialogue process in El Salvador
The effort began in 2016, when the Government of El Salvador asked the United Nations to assess the feasibility of a national consensus-building process. Following that request, a mission from the Department of Political Affairs conducted interviews, consultations, and exploratory dialogues with various sectors to analyze the political context and assess whether conditions existed to advance a consensus-building agenda.
Based on that initial groundwork, in early 2017 Secretary-General António Guterres named Benito Andión as Special Envoy to guide a more organized stage of the dialogue, with his efforts centered on creating opportunities for discussions among political parties and other key stakeholders amid a climate of institutional strain and heightened polarization.
From international facilitation to local leadership
One of the most significant aspects of the Salvadoran case is precisely the transition from a phase led by the United Nations to another driven directly by national sectors, albeit with UN support.
According to reports, the end of Andión’s mandate did not signify the conclusion of the effort, but rather the transfer of the accumulated work to a steering group composed of prominent figures from Salvadoran society. This was reported by a United Nations team during meetings held with representatives of the government, political parties, and the international community.
Loreto Ferrer, an official at the Department of Political Affairs and the close collaborator of the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy Benito Andión, stated that a steering group made up of leading members of Salvadoran society will carry the effort forward, drawing on the consultations and evaluations previously undertaken by the Mexican Andión.
This step builds on more than a year of consultations, assessments, and methodological inputs developed during the previous phase. The idea was for social organizations, the private sector, academia, and political actors to continue the process based on the knowledge already generated, rather than relying indefinitely on external international facilitation.
Given this, the Special Envoy considered that conditions were not yet sufficient to establish a formal high-level roundtable, but that there was a significant body of assessments, connections, and social capacities that could serve to sustain a dialogue agenda from within the country. This approach reinforced the idea that consensus-building processes can only be consolidated when local actors take an active role in their continuity.
The importance of coordination in consensus-building processes
National dialogues demand coordination among sectors that operate with distinct interests, vocabularies, and priorities, and as a result, beyond political mediation, they frequently depend on a solid technical framework to organize discussion, determine key issues, and maintain open channels of communication.
In such environments, professionals with experience in international cooperation contribute particularly to tasks such as systematizing information, organizing meeting spaces, and providing methodological support. The work carried out in El Salvador demonstrates precisely how consensus-building depends as much on political decisions as on support structures that make the process viable in practice.
A case illustrating institutional change across Latin America
The Salvadoran case illustrates how a United Nations-supported initiative can evolve into a framework where civil society and other national actors assume greater responsibility. Rather than a conclusion, this transition represented a shift in phase: from the initial international impetus to a logic of local continuity based on already established capacities.
