Grassroots-Based Rural Development Strategies : Ecuador in Comparative Perspective

International donors are providing increasing amounts of assistance to grassroots-based economic initiatives in Latin America and elsewhere. The question is: can such initiatives prosper and generate widespread improvements in living standards in the context of the prevailing neoliberal economic policy agenda? The paper responds to this question, from comparative Latin American and East Asian perspectives, by analyzing how economic diversification and improved living standards were achieved in two rural parishes in highland Ecuador. We find that, in both cases, access to landownership and other assets was a critical factor in permitting small-scale producers to participate in market exchange in a manner that allowed them to improve their living standards. Hence, to the extent that neoliberal policies freeze into place the highly inequitable overall structure of asset and income distribution in Ecuador and elsewhere, such policies inhibit the widespread replication of the two successful cases