In early August, El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly approved a new Culture Law that, for the first time ever, will create an institutional framework to protect and promote the country’s national art and culture as well as those who produce them. The law and the effort to get it passed was an initiative of the Cultural Secretariat of the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) party.

In 2012, the FMLN’s Cultural Secretariat carried out lengthy consultations with artists, intellectuals, and community culture workers from across the country as well as international experts in arts and culture. This process led to the original draft of the law that the FMLN submitted to the Legislative Assembly in November 2012. After nearly four years and several modifications to the original draft, the final version was approved with the support of all political parties in the legislature.

Among the beneficiaries of the law are artists, youth and indigenous communities as well as sites of historical and cultural significance. It includes the creation of a 1 million dollar Fund for Culture and Arts (FONCCA) that artists can apply to and compete for, the implementation of cultural promotion policies at the municipal level, the creation of cultural centers all across the country’s municipalities, the creation of the Higher Education Institute for the Arts, and the creation of a national registry and accreditation process for artists and professors in the arts.

“Society will now recognize us as cultural actors for the development of our country; a people that does not develop itself culturally is poor, and the artist is at the base of that growth” said Silvia Elena Regalado, acclaimed Salvadoran poet and the president’s Secretary of Culture.

While some important elements of the original proposal like the creation of a Ministry of Culture and the inclusion of artists and cultural workers in the country’s social security system were removed in the negotiations to get the votes necessary to pass the law, its authors believe that its approval is an important first step in laying groundwork that future legislatures can improve upon.