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Introduction
In early 1998, the Government of El Salvador entered an agreement with the World Bank to take the first steps toward designing a new type of development strategy to face the challenges of a globalized economy: the creation of a Learning Society, in which information and knowledge are the key levers of development. The Government decided to undertake this challenge in concert with Salvadoran society, by setting up a research team using a participatory methodology which included pilot testing.
This document is the result of 18 months of work among broad sectors of Salvadoran society, in a collective effort to discover and address the most important obstacles toward achieving a learning society, as well as identify and leverage El Salvador’s comparative advantages in order to evolve into a modern, competitive and more democratic society. The document has five chapters:
Chapter I – Context: The national and world contexts which both enable and urgently require a series of economic, social and cultural transformations, in order to prepare for the world of tomorrow.
Chapter II – Building a Learning Society: Considerations regarding the types of changes which are being proposed, in terms of recommended approaches and methods.
Chapter III – Individual Components: The products of nine months’ work by the learning circles, which address learning society issues as related to their respective sectors and which propose solutions: vision, analysis, critical issues, projects, and other initiatives. This section also describes the origin and future development of the Infocenters initiative, a fundamental platform for building a learning society.
Chapter IV – Broader Issues: a broader vision of the learning society from several different angles: Government and the State, democracy and citizenship, competitiveness, culture and national identity, and quality of life issues.
Chapter V – Conclusions and Next Steps: Coherence among the proposed projects, initiatives and policies, as well as a proposal for an institutional framework to lead the strategy implementation.
Appendices: Methodology used, proposed organizational scheme for projects, considerations on the monitoring and impact evaluation of the projects, summaries of case studies and fieldwork, list of participants in the learning circles, bibliography and glossary of acronyms.
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The document "Strategy for Building a Learning Society" represents a preliminary first step towards a long and profound process of change in El Salvador, and must not be seen as a complete answer to the challenges we face. Its contents and components are offered to the Salvadoran nation with the hope that they will be taken up, polished and enriched, broadened and revised, through multi-sectorial working groups, projects, and initiatives throughout the many different institutions, businesses, associations, and communities which reflect this country’s wealth of human resources.
All rights reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce all or part of this publication as long as the complete source is cited: Conectándonos al Futuro de El Salvador, "Strategy for Building a Learning Society", San Salvador, 1999, http://www.conectando.org.sv/English/Strategy/
