EL SALVADOR: Land Rights Breakthrough Delivers Property Titles and Hope to Thousands of Families

In 2018, grassroots leaders from two communities in El Salvador worked with Comunidades de Fe Organizadas en Acción (COFOA) to obtain title to
their land — an effort that would grow into a national campaign affecting hundreds of thousands of families. Other communities followed suit, and in 2020, COFOA
launched a national RENACER (REBIRTH) campaign to win titles for 350,000 families – one in five families in El Salvador – who’d been defrauded by developers.

Since then, COFOA has organized dozens of large public events at the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly, the Ministry of Housing, and the offices of private
developers. They’ve built organizing committees in more than 80 unregularized developments, and met regularly with Housing Minister Michelle Sol and her staff.

In 2021, Claudia Verónica Lazo and her neighbors from the Miramar II development in southern San Salvador joined COFOA to fight for their land titles. They attended
trainings, formed a Local Organizing Committee that meets weekly, listened to their neighbors, and prioritized paving the street in their subdivision. They participated
in marches and meetings as part of the RENACER campaign. In 2024, the municipality submitted their proposal to pave the street for government funding. And in 2025, Claudia and 20 of her neighbors finally received their deeds.

They weren’t alone: 2025 was a breakthrough year for COFOA’s RENACER campaign. In May, the Salvadoran Housing Minister announced that the government had regularized the land ownership of 61,333 families defrauded by the Argoz company, a key focus of COFOA’s organizing. These titles are worth an estimated $600 million to some of the poorest families in the country. By the end of 2025, three thousand
COFOA leaders received their property titles.

Gaining property rights is important because it not only enables families to borrow against, pass on, and sell their land, but also makes it easier for communities to demand water, electricity, paved roads, health centers, and other community infrastructure. And owning land provides people with a stronger foundation to speak out and participate politically.

When Claudia and the 15 other women who make up the core leadership team at Mirirmar II reflected on their experience with COFOA, they spoke not only about what they’ve accomplished but also about what they’ve learned about themselves and their capacity to drive change. Their story is repeated across more than 170 communities in Central America and 350 communities worldwide.