The groups warned that the country is undergoing a deliberate process of institutional dismantling, protected by a discourse of efficiency and guided by the impositions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF); therefore, artists, indigenous people, unionists, politicians, and various sectors of Ecuadorian society reject the administrative efficiency plan of Daniel Noboa’s government.

Among their main concerns are the elimination of the Ministry of Women and Human Rights and the Technical Secretariat for Child Malnutrition.

They denounce that these decisions, in a country where a woman is murdered every 21 hours and more than 27 percent of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, show institutional neglect of the most vulnerable sectors.

The document also criticizes mass layoffs in sensitive areas such as health, education, and community care, the increase in the retirement age, the reduction of benefits, and the cuts to the Farmer Social Security System, which protects thousands of older people and rural workers.

The organizations also reject the merger of the Ministry of Environment with the Ministry of Energy and Mines, which, they assert, places environmental oversight in the hands of extractivism and threatens communities defending their territories, now militarized to protect corporate interests.

They demand the immediate reinstatement of the eliminated institutions, the suspension of layoffs, the shelving of pension system reforms, and the publication of the agreement with the IMF. They also demand an urgent assessment of the impact on human rights and guarantees for the exercise of the right to protest and organize in the territories.

jdt/otf/avr