mishqui-yacu, sweet water - IFAD

68
faced the difficult choice of withdrawing their support altogether, or
attempting to overcome the conflicts and difficulties. After intense
discussions with the Government, local organizations and CARC
staff, it was decided to reformulate and reactivate the project. While
work continued on some of the components, greater effort was made
to orient the project towards a more participatory approach. The
main instruments and starting points for this process were a reformulation
mission and a thorough baseline study.
The reformulation mission visited Cañar in October 1994 and presented
its report the following year. Meanwhile, a Dutch consultancy
group hired by IFAD was busy carrying out a thorough baseline study
together with CARC staff.
It was a good and complicated exercise. One hundred and twenty
in-depth field interviews were carried out. We succeeded in getting
the Ecuadorians to look at the problems from a new angle. Without
the baseline study, we would not have been able to redirect the
project. Everyone was engaged. We all learned something and
were proud of the result. The entire process took two years. One
year in the field, then we processed the data and went back again.
We returned to the interviewees four to five times. It is always sensitive
and difficult to raise certain questions, for example those
connected with financial statements and labour division between
husband and wife. We all had a hate-love relation with that study.
However, in the end, we all thought in a new way. 94
A particularly useful revelation from the study was the realization
of how important the different height levels were for all agriculture
in the area. All activities are intimately connected to the
height above sea level they are carried out at. Crops, cattle-breeding
and agricultural techniques have to be adapted to this height. 95
94
95
Interview with Rudolf Mulder.
Ibid.