Differing Agendas: The Politics of IRD (Integrated Rural Development) Project Design in Panama: IRD Field Report

摘要

Building on the lessons learned in the failure of a pilot integrated rural development (IRD) project in Panama's Tonosi Province, this report outlines a realistic design for an IRD project in Veraguas Province. To avoid repeating Tonosi's failures, it is first noted that the new project should: ensure cooperation between the Ministries of Planning (MIPPE) and of Agricultural Development (MIDA), with MIPPE assigned coordination responsibility; generate participation by all concerned; and avoid alienating large landowners by a land reform program. The second section describes the project area and intended beneficiaries in terms of the shifting cultivation/cattle ranching complex; land tenure patterns; farming systems; human resources; infrastructure; and political organizations. The project's agricultural, agribusiness, and livestock/forestry components are detailed in section three, as is the component to create within MIPPE an institutional capacity to implement IRD projects. The budget for these components and for the project's roads and social services components are presented. The final section deals with the political, economic, and environmental constraints on the project; organizational placement and linkages; participation and decentralization; the differing agendas of key participants; and project sustainability.