You can find the original text for Laura Chinchilla in Spanish here.

Costa Rica: Safety, Security and Prosperity

Our country cannot stop, we must continue to go forward. My proposal is to continue building a Costa Rica with Security and Prosperity.

Security
Insecurity affects all of us today, it is a complex problem which we must seriously consider. Insecurity has deep roots and requires action in two areas: Social Security and Public Safety.

Social Security
With the growth of our country we need to ensure working mothers and fathers that their families will have social security and welfare. We will do this by developing a national network which would focus on our children, of preschool age, and provide them with care and early education. Mothers and fathers should feel confident that while they work, their children will have the best of care our country can provide.

We will invest in education, healthcare and public transportation. We will develop a program of housing and urban development. Collectively we will create methods to improve the living conditions of the needy. For the first time, we will create a network of day care for seniors.

In short, we want everyone to have a better education, better employment opportunities and a respectable retirement.

Public Safety
We will commit anew to strengthen, empower and widen our law enforcement to help them combat crime more effectively.

We will organize to protect our communities and our schools while we will vigorously engage in the fight against drug traffickers.

We will offer more opportunities for our young people so that they can choose to develop a healthy lifestyle and stay away from dangerous activities.

We will enforce the laws so that those who commit crimes, are punished.

Prosperity
Costa Rica has all of the elements we need to achieve higher levels of development and welfare; The intelligence of our people, the ecological wealth of our country and the spirit of solidarity amongst our citizens.

Intelligence
The abilities of our people is crucial because collectively our knowledge plays an increasingly important role in the prosperity of nations. We will emphasize the areas of education and training, productivity and innovation, and science and technology.

Along this endeavor of strengthening our people we must ensure that it is built upon values of solidarity, respect, honesty and personal responsibility. We want a highly knowledgeable citizenship who thrive in a democratic culture that is tolerant and inclusive.

Ecology
We are the heirs of a unique natural wealth and know that our future is tied to environmentally sustainable economies and not those that destroy their own wealth.

We are in a position to become one of the leading economies that is built upon our government’s environmental responsibility. Costa Rica leads in the generation of clean energy, leads in environmentally friendly tourism which is in harmony with nature, and our high technology industries that have low environmental impact.

Let’s us lead in the care of our water, in the development of transportation networks and practices for managing solid waste and wastewater, so that we can achieve better environmentally sound development.

Solidarity
The prosperity we seek is for everyones benefit where equal opportunity allows everyone to participate which increases our standard of living. Democracies are stronger when its people share fairly the fruits of development. And we know that a secure society is where all its citizens have access to a decent life and future prosperity

To read the Spanish version click here

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