Escobal, J., Ponce, C., Pajuelo, R. y Espinoza, M. (2012). Estudio comparativo de intervenciones para el desarrollo rural en la Sierra sur del Perú. Lima: Fundación Ford y GRADE.

Over the last decades, the rural Sierra has been the scene of multiple interventions. The purpose of this book is to compare the relative performance of two projects that have been working to improve the living conditions of the rural poor in the southern Sierra. The projects have been selected because they reflect, with different emphases, different styles of intervention. The objective of the book is to explore the effects of these two projects on the life strategies of the beneficiary households, on their asset accumulation strategies, on the changes in their food security and on their perceptions of well-being and empowerment. It also documents the relationship that the two projects establish with the beneficiaries and with local institutions.

The ultimate objective, beyond learning about the relative performance that these two projects seem to have in a comparable subsample of households, is to help build and institutionalize a system for learning from rural development experiences, an indispensable element for constructing intervention strategies that are more relevant and sustainable.