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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 preliminary work, in early 2017 Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Benito Andión as Special Envoy to facilitate a more structured phase of the dialogue. His work focused on opening spaces for conversation between political parties and other relevant actors, in a scenario marked by institutional tensions and high levels of polarization.
From international facilitation to local leadership
Among the most noteworthy elements of the Salvadoran case is the shift from a United Nations‑led stage to a new period steered directly by national actors, though still backed by the UN.
According to reports, the conclusion of Andión’s mandate did not signal the end of the initiative; instead, the work completed was turned over to a steering group formed by notable figures within Salvadoran society, as a United Nations team explained during meetings with representatives of the government, political parties, and the international community.
Loreto Ferrer, an official from the Department of Political Affairs and the right-hand person of the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy Benito Andión, reported that a steering group composed of prominent figures from Salvadoran society will continue the work, building on the consultations and assessments conducted by the Mexican Andión.
This step draws on over a year of consultations, evaluations, and methodological contributions completed in the preceding phase, aiming for social organizations, the private sector, academia, and political stakeholders to advance the process using the knowledge already established instead of depending endlessly 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.
An example of institutional transition in Latin America
The Salvadoran case shows how an initiative backed by the United Nations can gradually develop into a structure in which civil society and other national stakeholders take on a larger share of responsibility, and this stage marked not an endpoint but a change in momentum, shifting from the original international drive to a locally sustained approach built upon existing capacities.
