Studies such as the Happy Planet Index show a “different climate” in El Salvador
The island of Vanuatu, followed by Sweden and El Salvador, top the Happy Planet Index (HPI), the Hot or Cool Institute ideas laboratory, whose sixth edition highlights that consumption does not go hand in hand with a higher level of satisfaction or quality of life.
The researcher and director of the Citizen Studies Center (CEC) of the private Francisco Gavidia University, Óscar Picardo, told EFE that studies such as the Happy Planet Index show a “different climate” in El Salvador.
According to Picardo, “the Salvadoran is affable, let’s say that due to idiosyncratic and cultural aspects they face adverse conditions with optimism,” but he noted that “there may be other reasons that should be thought about or studied.”
«I believe that people are living in a different time. We come from armed conflict, from earthquakes, we come from hurricanes, we come from corruption, from impunity and now we are experiencing a different climate and I think it is noticeable in this type of studies,” said the researcher.
He added that he considers that “there is a different atmosphere” and that in a CEC survey, despite the fact that Salvadorans indicate that their main concern is the economic situation, “there is optimism that they will be better.”
He recalled that for four years the CEC has carried out measurements related to optimism and that the most recent ones indicate that “in general terms, people are happy, they are happy.”
Four Central American countries (El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama) are among the ten best positioned, since the levels of well-being reported by the population are between 6.1 and 6.6, to which are added life expectancies of between 70 and 77 years and small carbon footprints of between 2 and 5.2 tons.
«I think there is a different atmosphere, that is, beyond various communication phenomena that this Government has managed through its communications and propaganda apparatus, there are certain conditions that have changed the country, it is safer, there are no gang members affecting the citizens,” he indicated.
El Salvador has maintained the decline in homicides that began in 2016, after registering in 2015 the most violent year in its recent history, and this drop was accentuated under the Government of President Nayib Bukele.
One of the most supported policies that earned Bukele re-election, despite the fact that it is prohibited by the Constitution, is the emergency regime, in force since March 2022 and which has left more than 79,200 arrests, also more than 6,000 complaints of violations. to human rights. EFE
