Ecuador : evaluation of the agricultural sector reorientation project (518-0051)

The project established a Policy Analysis Unit (PAU), located in the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), to support MOA policy initiatives and to carry out a large research agenda. The research strategy, which was designed to demonstrate the value of policy analysis research to policy makers, has not achieved the intended result. While short-term TA has produced high-quality policy analysis, the overall success of the PAU has been minimal due to the limited availability of Ecuadorean economists, organizational confusion, and lack of credibility. A private sector unit, the Institute for Developing Strategies for Agriculture (IDEA), was also established by the project. IDEA, while having some organizational weaknesses, has made a creditable start. With a more focused research agenda, more collaborative efforts, and continued training, IDEA has the potential to become a reliable source of policy analysis in the macroeconomic, agricultural, and natural resource areas. In-service training activities and the development of a national agricultural information system have made notable progress, with the information collection/dissemination efforts on the whole being the most successful project component. The evaluation concludes that the project has made a reasonably good start, but that much more coordination and collaboration in design and implementation are needed. The information component is ready to move toward institutionalization, but the policy component has not yet reached that stage. Project experience shows the importance of public and private involvement in the development of policy analysis especially when it is designed to catalyze or support policy change. This evaluation illustrates the wide range of difficulties encountered in institutionalizing agricultural policy analysis, including the limitations of locating policy analysis units within Ministries of Agriculture, the impact of low salaries on recruitment and retention, the problems involved in sustaining such units on local resources, and tensions between a changing political process and need for continuity in capacity building. (Author abstract)