Meet The Ambassadors: Guatemala & El Salvador

Join us as we welcome Nick Whittingham, His Majesty’s Ambassador to the Republic of Guatemala and David Lelliott, His Majesty's Ambassador to the Republic of El Salvador on Friday 23rd June from 15:00-16:00 BST.

Guatemala

Following a large rebound in 2021 (8 percent), Guatemala’s economy grew by an estimated 4 percent in 2022, driven by private consumption, investment, and public consumption. GDP growth is expected to slow down to 3.2 percent in 2023.

Still, the country faces major development challenges: Guatemala’s poverty and inequality rates are among the highest in the Latin American and Caribbean region (LAC), driven by the existence of a large and underserved population, mostly rural and Indigenous and employed in the informal sector.

Guatemala’s under five child malnutrition rate (at 47 percent) is among the ten highest worldwide. Despite recent government efforts to prioritize early child interventions, the stunting rate remain particularly high and could worsen in a context of food insecurity and high food prices.

Disasters have hit Guatemala hard, destroyed infrastructure, reduced agricultural output, intensified food insecurity, spread diseases, and disrupted the provision of essential services. Recent estimates suggests that the Eta and Iota hurricanes in 2020 caused infrastructure-related losses of close to 0.56 percent of GDP.

Guatemala nonetheless has enormous potential to generate growth and prosperity for its entire population. The country is rich in natural resources, is one of the world’s megadiverse countries, possesses a civilization-spanning culture as well as a diversified economy and its proximity to the United States provides significant tourism and nearshoring opportunities.

Mr Nick Whittingham was appointed His Majesty’s Ambassador to the Republic of Guatemala and Her Majesty’s Non-Resident Ambassador to the Republic of Honduras in September 2019.

He joined the FCO in 1995 and has spent his time before his appointment in Guatemala in a variety of roles that largely focused on China and his roles across Trade and Industry.

El-Salvador

The smallest country in Central America, El Salvador has experienced modest economic growth in recent decades, with annual GDP growth exceeding 3 percent only three times between 2000 and 2022. Still, the country achieved a significant decline in poverty and inequality.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant negative impact on people’s lives and families’ incomes. Although El Salvador was quick to adopt strong containment measures against the outbreak and the Government rolled out a robust fiscal response to limit the pandemic’s impact on households and businesses, the pandemic dealt a major blow to growth as GDP declined by 8.2 percent in 2020.

El Salvador’s economy grew by 10.3 percent in 2021, after a fall of 8.2 percent in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while growth moderated to 2.8 percent in 2022 and is expected to average 2.3 percent in 2023.  In the medium-term, GDP is forecast to converge to 2.1 percent, above historical averages, on the back of private consumption, public investment, and tourism.

Challenges persist for El Salvador, such as the need to advance reforms for fiscal sustainability.

Despite challenges, El Salvador has great potential to boost a dynamic, inclusive, and resilient economic growth. The country can continue to prioritize ramping up investments in human capital to foster accumulation and strengthening the effectiveness of the social protection system. El Salvador can also enhance public and private investment, promote access to high-quality jobs and foster a more dynamic, competitive, and innovative private sector. To reduce vulnerabilities, the country can also promote a sustainable and equitable fiscal policy, strengthen resilience to disaster risk and pandemics and consolidate governance and institutions.