TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – A plan by Central American governments to boost economic growth in the region and cut illegal immigration to the United States foresees major spending on infrastructure and energy projects, a draft of the proposal showed yesterday.
The “Plan of the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle” aims to renovate highways, city bypasses and border crossings in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, as well as carry out improvements to other infrastructure in the region.
Including projects that have already been announced, the planned works are worth well over $1 billion.
A surge in unaccompanied children arriving this year at the US border has pushed the United States, Mexico and Central American nations to seek new strategies to reduce the number of children and families trying to get into US territory.
The flood of migrants has stretched US resources on its southwest border and revealed the hardships many migrants face on the journey.
The development plan, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, proposes doubling the capacity of the shared Central American network of power grids known as SIEPAC as well as supplying natural gas from southern Mexico to Central America.
The infrastructure projects planned for Honduras alone would be worth “hundreds of millions of dollars,” a Honduran government official said, speaking condition of anonymity.
Given that the US marketplace was the main destination of drugs trafficked through Central America, the United States ought to shoulder the cost of over 80 per cent of the aid authorised by the plan, the same Honduran official said.
The plan for the region, which suffers from high murder rates and widespread poverty, was developed with the help of the Inter-American Development Bank. It also includes proposals to improve several airports, including in Belize and Nicaragua.
