Maximizing Impact Through Coordinated Security and Counterdrug Cooperation in Ecuador

In Ecuador’s April 13 run-off presidential election, Daniel Noboa—the 37-year-old candidate from the National Democratic Action Party (ADN)—was elected with 55.6 percent of the popular vote, securing an 11-point margin over correísta challenger Luisa González of the center-left Citizen Revolution Party. The result has been described as a larger-than-expected victory. The National Legislative Assembly is now also under the leadership of the ADN, allowing the party to lead the governing board, which is responsible for managing the legislative agenda. The ADN will also hold 11 of the 15 permanent committees responsible for legislating on key sectors such as security, justice, international relations, labor, the environment, and government oversight. This establishes a political configuration that appears to favor Noboa’s chances of moving a security-centric agenda forward. On Saturday, May 17, the committee structure was put in place and the president sent his first bill—the Organic Law to Dismantle the Criminal Economy Linked to the Internal Armed Conflict—to the legislature, setting the tone for his mandate and calling for the establishment of financial, tax, and security measures aimed at dismantling criminal economies.

On May 24, President Noboa will begin his first full four-year term in office. With a legitimate legislative majority and his country’s vote of confidence in hand, Noboa stands ready to deliver on his tough-on-crime posture to jolt Ecuador out of its security turmoil. He has enlisted foreign military assistance to combat drug cartels and transnational organized crime groups. However, the president must go beyond simply increasing seizures and arrests and, from the outset, deal with the overlapping crises of insecurity and underdevelopment. This commentary argues that a thoughtful and coordinated approach—one that is led by Daniel Noboa himself and enlists key government entities to move forward in unison and systematically combat insecurity and narcotrafficking—can in fact serve as a powerful driver of development. It also underscores the need to tailor and put in place a strategy to address crime and violence—root causes of insecurity—and sketches recommendations to operationalize an international cooperation framework to map, track, coordinate, and account for international cooperation.

Channeling Resources to Tackle Crime and Violence

Organized crime exploits poverty and hollows out the state. Drivers of violence in Ecuador include drug trafficking, illegal economies, environmental degradation, and institutional fragility. In December 2024, poverty, primarily found in rural zones and urban peripheries, rose to 28 percent, and the homicide rate reached 38.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, a 546.7 percent increase since 2015. Ecuador’s homicide rate is the single highest in the Western Hemisphere and is directly linked to the proliferation of criminal groups and transnational cocaine trafficking.

Concretely, this translates to 5.2 million Ecuadorians either living in extreme poverty—defined as living on $51.53 per month—or in poverty, living on $91.43 per month or less.

A security strategy and counterdrugs approach aims—at a minimum—at leveraging international cooperation and ensuring coordination across key sectors such as justice, defense, and law enforcement; setting up intelligence-led and targeted policing; modernizing the prison systems; and strengthening rule of law and anti-corruption institutions. A 2024 CSIS commentary on why Ecuador’s security crisis demands global action provided recommendations for leveraging U.S., regional, and European security cooperation. Building on these findings, and deliberately using a development lens, a case should be made to pair security cooperation with development programming and channel it into an integrated strategy that promotes job creation and economic growth, prevents environmental degradation, and enhances governance.

President Noboa is a well-educated pragmatist who is fully aware of the importance his first full four-year term presents. Furthermore, he is clear that an iron-fist strategy may work in the short run but will not fix underlying problems, which include a lack of adequate economic, social, and political development. In this sense, a longer-term approach must be prioritized. Development is not just the consequence of improved security; it should be a crosscutting strategy to arrest crime and violence, which are the root causes of underdevelopment and insecurity. Investments from the public sector, private sector, international organizations, and other institutions will be required to move the needle in Ecuador. In this context, three illustrative programming suggestions are the following: (1) prioritize border programs on customs modernization by promoting economic corridors and establishing binational development zones; (2) involve civil society, indigenous groups, and local governments in social and behavior change anticorruption programming; and (3) leverage lessons from international security initiatives that already integrate and align security initiatives with development finance—like the Security and Justice for Development Framework of the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF).

In the last few years, Ecuador has emerged as a critical transit country for narcotics, specifically cocaine. By supporting Ecuador’s capacity to confront these threats, the United States can reduce the flow of illicit drugs to its own borders, disrupt transnational criminal networks, and prevent these groups from gaining more influence in the region. Also, in an environment where U.S. foreign assistance is being reevaluated and realigned and the U.S. Department of State’s budget has been significantly reduced, there is an even greater need to target available U.S. assistance; align it with strategic U.S. interests, including countering China’s growing influence in the Western Hemisphere; and ask our allies to do judicious due diligence and use resources efficiently. In this context, operationalizing a dedicated centralized international cooperation model in Ecuador to map, track, coordinate, and account for international cooperation—including U.S. foreign aid—is timely for both Ecuador and the United States.

Map, Track, Coordinate, and Account for International Cooperation

International cooperation in Ecuador today is fragmented, largely due to Noboa’s unusually short first term—only 18 months—and compounded by a dramatic security crisis and persistent underdevelopment. Constitutionally, Noboa is required to submit a national development plan (see Article 147, No. 4). This obligation also creates a prime opportunity to put in place a comprehensive security strategy and an anti-narcotics approach that can also serve to address development challenges. The national development plan, the national security strategy, and the national budget represent key policy tools to delineate the legislative agenda; prioritize much-needed investment, including international cooperation; and contribute to maximizing impact.

Ecuador engages with traditional donors like the United States, the European Union, and Germany, as well as with international financial institutions like Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, and the CAF. Currently, Ecuador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility (MFAHM) is responsible for overseeing international cooperation. Ministerial Agreement MFAHM No. 0000009, signed on January 22, 2025, by Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld, delineates a brand new organizational architecture to clarify functions in the ministry, create the Undersecretariat of International Cooperation, ensure that international cooperation investments are aligned with national priorities, liaise with line ministries and government entities, and ensure effective outcomes. To better utilize limited resources, the Noboa administration should leverage this new framework to map, track, coordinate, and account for financial and programmatic results of international cooperation.

The recently created Vice Ministry of International Cooperation, led by Alfonso Abdo, will develop a strategy in the short term. Recommendations to operationalize said strategy include the following:

• Incorporate foreign assistance into medium- and long-term development frameworks, such as the national development plan and sectoral plans in Ecuador.
• Apply the five aid effectiveness principles: (1) ownership—recipient countries set their own development strategies; (2) alignment—donors align aid with national priorities; (3) harmonization—donors coordinate to reduce redundancy; (4) managing for results—ensure that development results that can be tracked and measured; and (5) mutual accountability for the use of funds to the citizens of the donor and recipient countries.
• Participate in triangular cooperation with traditional donors and other countries, reflecting their dual roles both as recipients and providers.
• Promote peer-to-peer knowledge and practice-sharing through south-south initiatives.
• Increase accountability by integrating aid using Ecuador’s own budgeting systems.
• Promote transparency and local ownership in aid implementation by registering implementing partners—universities, nongovernmental organizations, and private sector actors—in planning and implementing aid-funded projects.
• Provide donors with an accessible, centralized dashboard to access information in real time, avoid duplication, and increase coordination among donors.
• Foster relationships and participate in international fora with other countries and international organizations to address global challenges.
   

The Noboa administration has a unique window of opportunity to position Ecuador as a destination for foreign investment and to maximize security, counterdrug, and development impact through the strategic and efficient use of international cooperation. Three specific recommendations for the MFAHM include the following:

• Chair an interagency group to avoid duplication, align priorities, and identify synergies among donors, relevant ministries, civil society, and possibly the private sector.
• Integrate metrics into cooperation agreements to track their outcomes.
• Share progress, using metrics, through the MFAHM website on objectives, including those delineated in the national development plan, and tell the story of their impact.
   

While these recommendations require minimum resources, they do call for meaningful political will. Operationalizing a clear international cooperation framework, as well as ensuring transparency in both investments and progress, will yield tangible results in the short term, including improving interagency coordination, transparency, and accountability; harmonizing bilateral and multilateral cooperation and ensuring resources are not duplicative; and providing a one-stop shop for academia, journalists, and civil society. 

This new transparency and accountability standard will set the tone for other ministries. With the use of metrics, the Noboa administration will also show how it addresses the country’s mounting security challenges and moves toward stability and economic prosperity objectives.

Security cooperation and counternarcotics strategies in Ecuador have been—and will continue to be—a priority for the U.S. government and instrumental in addressing the threats posed by transnational organized crime. They can also contribute to broader development goals by promoting stability and economic resilience. However, to achieve this goal, it is imperative to map, track, measure, and account for the financial and programmatic achievements of the limited international cooperation resources available. Operationalizing and implementing a clear international cooperation framework that maximizes security and counterdrug investment and threads through development priorities is low-hanging fruit that, with some political will, can be accomplished during the first 100 days of the first full term of the Noboa administration.

In an era of constrained resources, fewer donors are in a position to provide sustained financial assistance. Ecuador must be able to transparently track metrics in real time, tell the story, and share outcomes and results with donors in order to make a case in favor of continued investment and increased resources. Specifically, in the case of U.S. assistance, Ecuador must demonstrate how U.S. investment is consistent with U.S. foreign policy under the America First agenda, as well as keep in mind Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement in his nomination hearing: “every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?” An empowered Vice Ministry of International Cooperation, with a clear mandate and committed support from key decisionmakers, can transform how Ecuador manages international cooperation resources and maximize its security impact and development outcomes.

Margarita R. Seminario is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.