Andean countries in Latin America are too often afterthoughts when it comes to thinking about big-picture regional challenges and potential solutions. However, these countries have much to teach us about the dilemmas and successes of democratic consolidation, economic policy, development planning, and the best paths forward in pursuit of societal wellbeing. Andean countries such as Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, in particular, offer a range of innovative approaches and valuable lessons learned for such increasingly important contemporary issues as conserving biodiversity, the future of human rights frameworks, responding to extractive booms, strategies of alternative development, navigating China’s growing regional importance, and addressing often long-standing and challenging post-colonial legacies in efforts to recognize and empower their diverse citizenry, including historically marginalized indigenous and Afro-Latino communities. 

With the goal of centering Andean countries as dynamic contributors to regional and global change, this project maintains a focus on Ecuador. Too often marginal to policy conversations about the region’s future, Ecuador is a country that is particularly good to think with at present, both because many of its current challenges have also become urgent questions throughout the Andean region and Latin America, and also because in recent decades Ecuador has been a fruitful social, political, and economic laboratory where innovative solutions to difficult policy issues have been attempted, if with mixed results. Ecuador, in short, has much to teach us, even as it presents a set of emerging governance, security, and societal challenges.

Based on in-depth analysis of timely case studies, our goal is to wed illuminating analysis to policy recommendations. To inaugurate this project, we have chosen three case studies from Ecuador, each initiated during the populist administration of Rafael Correa (2007-2017):

1. The Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric dam, built by China;

2. The Yasuni ITT initiative, intended as an alternative to more traditional extractive economy models and innovative approach to biodiversity conservation;

3. And the planned Yachay City of Knowledge, conceived as an effort to establish an Ecuadorian hub for technology innovation.

All three projects were innovative but also continue to generate debate in Ecuador and beyond. Taken together these projects illuminate major challenges and possible solutions regarding the role of foreign actors in national development, present and future energy needs, alternatives to extraction, and strategies for Ecuador – and like countries – regarding the emerging technology-driven global information economy.

As part of this program of research, policy analysis and recommendations, and public outreach, we will publish three working papers offering in-depth analyses of each case, convene a public panel at American University composed of distinguished experts and faculty, intended for regional policy decision-makers, and generate multiple blog posts exploring key issues raised and solutions posed. This project is led by CLALS director Ernesto Castañeda and associate director Rob Albro. 

The Ecuador Research Initiative is made possible in part by generous support from Dr. Maria Donoso Clark, CAS/PhD '91.