The government of Daniel Ortega announced the closure of Save the Children International in Nicaragua, in a series of massive dismissals of NGOs and greater control of foreign cooperation in that Central American country.
Save the Children International, which operates in more than a hundred nations in defense of children, requested its “voluntary dissolution” to “complete a portfolio of projects in Nicaragua,” according to decrees published in the official newspaper La Gaceta.
Related news: Save The Children International leaves Nicaragua
Some 5,600 NGOs have had to cease their operations in Nicaragua, many of them under this “voluntary dissolution” modality, since the anti-government protests of 2018, which according to the United Nations left more than 300 dead.
Consulted by AFP in London, where the organization’s headquarters are located, Save the Children International reported having agreed to dissolve “mainly due to insufficient funds to guarantee the continuity of the programs” in Nicaragua.
“Current financial challenges prevent us from continuing with our programming in an effective and sustainable manner,” the NGO argued, after highlighting that it had worked in Nicaragua “for more than 50 years” in education, health and other programs.
According to the resolution published in the official Nicaraguan newspaper, Save the Children International had been registered since December 2011 and requested its dissolution last December. It is not clear if it was previously registered in any other way.
Related news: Save the Children Canada, among the NGOs confiscated by the Nicaraguan government
At the end of November, the Ortega government promoted a law to monitor and regulate the work of organizations, cooperation agencies and diplomatic missions in the country, further increasing its control over international entities.
International cooperation “must have the consent and authorization of the government, both initially and in its implementation,” according to that legislation.
– Toughening against NGOs –
In August 2024, the Ortega government had already announced the closure of Save the Children Canada, an entity that received funds from that North American country and had been developing projects in Nicaragua since 2004.
Like Save the Children International, another dozen NGOs, several of them religious, also asked on this occasion for its “voluntary dissolution,” according to La Gaceta.
Of the total number of NGOs closed since 2008, about 1,250 are religious, according to figures from the exile organization Colectivo Nicaragua Ahora Más.
Four other organizations were closed this Wednesday, according to the resolution, for “non-compliance with the laws” that regulate non-profit and non-governmental organizations, toughened to force them to work in association with the State.
Ortega, a 79-year-old former guerrilla who ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s and has been in power since 2007, maintains that NGOs and the Catholic Church supported the protests in 2018, which he considered an attempted coup d’état sponsored by Washington.
Thousands of Nicaraguans went into exile and some 450 politicians, businessmen, intellectuals and artists were stripped of their nationality in recent years, accused of “treason to the country.”
