Interim evaluation ¹

When we refer to an evaluation of a nation-wide strategy, as is the case with PRODEPINE in Ecuador, a synthetic judgement of the project's performance - even though very necessary - cannot strictly reflect all aspects involved. In this sense, the performance of PRODEPINE can be roughly qualified as a more than satisfactory investment, which was able to unfold in the midst of the country's political and financial crisis. The evaluation also confirms that PRODEPINE was able to support the process of "identity development for the indigenous and afro-ecuadorian peoples", a yet ongoing and unfinished process.

The project successfully overcame internal and external factors affecting its implementation. The components started operating as scheduled, December 2002, except for the sub-component of RFS, which began two years late. The closing date is June 2004. Financial execution at present is USD 14 213 50 millions, with approximately USD 1 349 048 remaining.

After five years of implementing PRODEPINE, it is recognized both nationally and internationally, that one of the project's major achievements is having laid the groundwork for an operating structure for indigenous organizations by providing a methodology to work with indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian peoples through their own existing organizations.

The evaluators concluded that while the strengthening of indigenous organizations can be verified, it is not clear that the indigenous communities represented by those organizations have been strengthened. It is important to keep in mind that PRODEPINE has benefited 1 345 500 indigenous men and women, exceeding 57% of the total planned. The communities visited recognize the project benefits and the work done by their STOs and TTOs, but feel that the strengthening of communities organized was ad hoc and incipient. Originally the STOs and TTOs were responsible for training their communities. However, the training did not take place systematically in most cases.

Also, community training by PRODEPINE only reached some communities after the projects had been executed. Accordingly, the question of sustainability, both of processes, methodologies and infrastructural works, remains pending and needs to be resolved in future interventions.

Recommendation 1

To promote the potential of the indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian peoples as part of a multicultural society, a practical mechanism based on non-discriminatory rules should be examined, in order to train communities from their base, and grant resources directly to these communities.

PRODEPINE pursues "development with identity" and "interculturality". Its achievements in this respect are controversial, since PRODEPINE's regulations call for universal, homogeneous processes and procedures for all nationalities and peoples in Ecuador and do not take into account their cultural, geographical, political and administrative differences. There is a widespread perception that PRODEPINE was designed for the Sierra, where most of the country's indigenous population is concentrated. A homogeneous treatment across-the-board could lead to the failure of local development initiatives and to the weakening of social structures, as indicated by several organizations in the Coast and Amazon regions.

Recommendation 1

Promote regionalized strategies with a double objective: firstly, in accordance with the local ethno-cultural and environmental realities of the peoples in the Coast, Sierra and Amazon regions develop, for example, an Afro PRODEPINE and an Amazon PRODEPINE. Secondly, financial allocations by STO/TTOs, per capita and per project, should include regional costs that take into account the organizational level of the projects and acknowledge the internal and external political factors affecting the development of the project. Among these factors is, for example, the pressure lumber and oil workers in the Coast and Amazon regions put on the beneficiaries.

Recommendation 2

Establish mechanisms to regionalize PRODEPINE by conducting an informed consultation with the target-group and STO/TTOs in all three regions of the country. The responsibility for generating regional guidelines towards regionalization should not lay on the project's central technical unit in the capital, but on the regional and community realities to ensure their ownership and sustainability.

Recommendation 3

Concentrate on the institutional strengthening of communities, local committees and associations. The strengthening should include training in diagnosing and prioritizing the needs of communities and ways to resolve them, as well as training in management and administration of development. It is also equally important to promote the communities' social capital and train people in monitoring and social auditing of processes and projects carried out in communities.

In its original design, PRODEPINE had no gender strategy. This was rectified following the mid-term evaluation, when several studies were conducted. Still, the evaluators could not verify the existence of a gender strategy that promoted women's participation in decision-making and in opportunities for training, business management, lending for land purchase and legalization, scholarships and other project interventions. The only sub-component aimed specifically at women is village banking (cajas solidarias) which is managed exclusively by women.

Recommendation 1

In order to verify whether a comprehensive gender strategy in all other components is being implemented, PRODEPINE should periodically gather information disaggregated by gender, using participatory methods. Specifically, the gender strategy should be implemented along with a verifiable conceptual framework, performance indicators, methodology and other forms of operation for the application of the gender approach and a monitoring system to measure progress and make adjustments. There were no gender training sessions at the grass-root level.

Recommendation 2

In order to identify activities that may endanger women's biological tasks, a better follow-up of women's interventions is recommended, with a view to promoting mothers' health, reducing mother/infant mortality and reducing morbidity rates particularly in the rural areas where indigenous populations lack proper access to health services.

The Rikuk Pacha monitoring system has proved to be efficient in tracking PRODEPINE's administrative processes at the national level. Access by all regional offices permits orderly monitoring of operations throughout the country. The Rikuk Pacha system provides a record of administrative and financial data but does not effectively indicate whether processes have yielded results, whether works have had an impact, or whether needs have been met.

Recommendation 1

Complete the Rikuk Pacha monitoring system with indicators covering critical factors of interculturality, gender and participation, as well as indicators monitoring processes and results. Rikuk Pacha should be complimented with indicators related to the recovery, strengthening and revitalization of the diverse culture of peoples and nationalities, as identified by SIISE for SIDENPE (need to spell these out the first time they are used).

Recommendation 2

Wherever possible, the indicators mentioned should be elaborated, tested and up-dated by the communities to ensure that the impact of projects on the livelihoods of households is monitored.

Recommendation 3

Make full use of the evaluation instruments already tested by the project, such as RURALINVEST, in order to measure social capital and enable the environmental monitoring of rural development projects.

The public investment component generated and reinforced social capital in indigenous communities. Executing agencies for these sub-projects were STO/TTOs. Most of the sub-projects are included in LDPs (this is not in the acronyms list and & should be spell out first time). Financial distribution for this sub-component is as follows: approximately 65% for the Sierra, 16% for Afro-Ecuadorians, and 13% for the Amazon region. Half of the sub-projects are for social infrastructure (classrooms and school-feeding programmes, shelters, potable water, radio stations, health centres, child-care centres), while 40% are for economic infrastructure (irrigation systems, agro-industry, road upgrading, greenhouses, electricity grids), 8% are for environmental investments (micro-watershed protection and/or management, soil recovery and/or conservation, environmental forestation). The community contribution to this component was their communal work system known as minga.

Recommendation 1

In order to empower the communities to take responsibility for their own destiny, it is recommended that consideration be given to decentralizing project management to community organizations selected by the communities themselves. Under this arrangement, the communities are invested with the power, capacity and authority to hire their own executing agencies (almost always community agencies) for training and projects. The community may hire the STO or the municipality if they are capable of providing the service. In order to formulate and carry out the kinds of sub-projects mentioned above, it is recommended that communities be trained to formulate, implement, monitor and evaluate their own projects.

Recommendation 2

Given the need expressed by many communities to have exclusively cultural revitalization projects, it is recommended that funding be allocated for cultural revitalization projects for each of the indigenous and black peoples.

Accountability at the national level needs to be strengthened throughout the public and private sectors. Observations made by the four external auditors performing annual project reviews indicate the need to train project participants in rendering accounts. This is imperative considering that PRODEPINE funds constitute external indebtedness that must be repaid by Ecuador to international organizations.

Recommendation 1

Train communities to be accountable regarding the management of public funds. Traditionally, accountability practice has not been followed by small farmers and indigenous peoples although this is now changing. Therefore, there is a need to strengthen accounting and project administration skills and to provide training in monitoring and control of compliance with the guidelines governing social processes by Second/Third-tier Organizations, local government, Municipal government and the GOE.

Recommendation 2

Support beneficiary communities in demanding accounts from indigenous and non-indigenous authorities, contractors, supervisors, and any others involved in community development. Likewise, communities must be prepared to render accounts to those institutions they cooperate with, to the indigenous organizations that support them, and to other state agencies.

The scholarship sub-component was warmly received throughout the country, as it set out to create local employment for people who would otherwise have been obliged to take on lesser work, given the lack of demand for their expertise. The communities looked favourably on locals receiving contracts for services. However, since STOs and TTOs were responsible for selecting the recipients of the scholarships, the results were questioned strongly by beneficiary communities.

Recommendation 1

Increase the amount of financing earmarked for indigenous professional scholarships and extend it to areas such as finance, economics, medicine, engineering, law and diplomacy, so that indigenous professionals will find a technical and political niche at all levels.

Recommendation 2

Conduct the selection of beneficiaries of scholarships outside the STOs and TTOs. Ensure that eligibility criteria for scholarship beneficiaries are strictly followed and that they identify a more appropriate, non-discriminatory, transparent mechanism for the selection of recipients, in order to avoid arbitrary decisions. It is recommended that the selection of scholarship beneficiaries and the resulting contract be closely audited.

The Rural Financial Services (RFS) component includes the credit unions and village banking (cajas solidarias) system. As of April 2003 the RFS component had disbursed approximately USD 3,2 million, or 34% of IFAD's total investment. The total projected number of beneficiaries was 54 500, to be reached by means of 21 500 productive investments and 15 000 micro-lending activities. As with public investments, 77% of the investment is concentrated in the Sierra followed by 12% in the Amazon and 11% on the Coast. The mission's major concern is that this component has not been consolidated and is only halfway towards meeting its objective of "increasing access by indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian communities to financial resources to enable them to finance productive activities and facilitate the establishment of efficient and sustainable financial systems for the target population". At the moment, the future of this component and plans to capitalize the investment are not clear.

Please find detailed recommendations made by the evaluation team, in the Main Report Annex II.

The following statements reflect the opinions expressed by the Country Portfolio Manager:

• The main achievement of this component is the capitalization of women's village banks to which some resources and autonomy have been transferred.
• Regarding the formal credit activities, it is not clear a) whether beneficiaries benefited or b) whether the rural financial system has been strengthened.
• Beyond the benefits gained by the Local Financial Entities (Entidades Financieras Locales) as they received funds at low interest rates and placed these funds at the going interest rates on the market, it is difficult to quantify investments in a country where several qualified intermediate organizations are in charge of rural financing

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1. The Core Learning Partnership was composed of Mr. Roberto Haudry de Soucy, Country Project Manager, IFAD; Mr. Miguel Angel Aguirre, Financial Services Consultant, PRODEPINE; Mr. Karakras Ampam, Vice-Project Manager, PRODEPINE; Mr. Manuel Imbaquingo, Executive Director, PRODEPINE; Ms. Wendy Molina, Legal Officer, Ministry of Environment; Mr. Jorge Orbe, Technical Coordinator, PRODEPINE; Mr. Carlos Recalde, Director of Finance and Administration, PRODEPINE; Mr. Alex Remache, Public Projects Consultant, PRODEPINE; Mr. David Tuchschneider, Task Team Manager, The World Bank; Mr. Julio Ulcuango, Financial Services Assistant, PRODEPINE; Mr. Jorge Uquillas, Senior Economist, The World Bank; Mr. Kurikama Yupanki, Water and Land Consultant, PRODEPINE.