Evaluation of Two NORAD-Supported Development Projects in Latin America under the Responsibility of Norwegian Mission Organizations

The core question of this evaluation has been the relationship between the diffusion of values through the evangelization work of the missionary organizations, and the development effect of their social projects. Does the religious aspect of their activities represent an asset or a barrier for social developement? Two aspects were focused in the terms of reference:
- possible attitudinal barriers to development in the culture of traditional societies;
- consequences of changing established cultural and religious values for local resource mobilization in the target population.

Of course there is no easy and clear cut answer to this extremely complicated problem. We have tried to analyze the NORAD-supported development projects of respectively the Norwegian Santal Mission in Ecuador and the Pentecostal Mission of Norway in Paraguay in their attempt to reach the optimalization of the invested resources for development effect.

Our main conclusion is that the mode of work we have been able to observe in these two cases, does not fulfill this objective. There is no doubt that the projects have been aimed at - and to a considerable extent have reached - the poorest groups, those most in need of help. But the help has principally been of a short-term, relief character for a limited number of individuals; the target groups as such have not been helped to a long-term, self-sustained social growth through these projects.