2010

Evaluation of the codevelopment Cañar – Murcia project

The context

As a result of the financial and fiscal crisis Ecuador suffered between 1998 and 1999, its per capita GDP fell by 9%. In 1999 the number of people living without basic needs coverage was 47%; nearly 8 of every 10 Ecuadorians living in the rural areas (77%) lived in poverty, and 4 of every 10 (38%) did so in extreme poverty. Social spending per capita fell by 37% between 1996 and 1999, while political instability and the growing climate of social conflict did not help the situation in the short or long term. In this scenario of crisis, emigration went from 18,000 people in 1996 to 33,000 in 1998, and later to the year 2000, 107.000. It is estimated that 45% of permanent emigrants went to the Spain, being Madrid, Barcelona, Murcia and Valencia were the four main reception areas.

The evaluated project is consistent with the Plan Director of the Spanish cooperation 2005-2008, which States Morocco and Ecuador as the two countries where would be carried out pilot projects of co-development. It is also part of the agreements signed by the two States in the XI Hispano-Ecuadorian Joint Committee, stating the political will to carry out bilateral cooperation in the field of co-development.

The project to evaluate

The Canar-Murcia codevelopment project is a pilot experience promoted by the AECID aiming to contribute to the improvement of the living conditions of the populations of the Cañar canton, seated in Cañar and in the region of Murcia. The project consists of the implementation of activities carried out between the company and origin of migrants (Cañar, Ecuador) and society and institutions of destination (municipalities of the region of Murcia).

The target of the project is to bring a new reality and to do it from a social, cultural and economic point of view to enhance the beneficial effects of the presence of employees of Cañar in this Spanish region to the development of Canar and Murcia. The project takes form with the necessary integration of aspects related to the socio-economic reality of the diaspora of Cañar in the destination society, as well as the conditions of life in the community of origin which, beyond of the situation of crisis, explained the phenomenon of mass migration.

About the content, the project has an economic component, which works in the field of natural resources, the productive fabric, community-based tourism and land use planning, and one social, making impact on psychosocial aspects, gender and communication.