ABSTRACT
After the Salvadoran civil war, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) asked me to conduct a program evaluation of their local government strengthening, decentralization, and counterinsurgency program in El Salvador, especially cabildos abiertos, open town meetings convened by mayors from left-wing FMLN and right-wing ARENA political parties. The controversial MEA program-Municipalities in Action, or Municipios en Acción-funded small infrastructure projects through CONARA and SRN when prioritized at community cabildos. I learned to turn key informant interviews into dialogic interviewing, building empathy and building relationship. I saw the larger issue ecosystem of postwar reconstruction. My purpose was mutual understanding. A statistically robust stratified random sample survey of ex-conflict and non-conflict zones helped. Later, I evaluated USAID’s citizen participation program in El Salvador and used participatory methods for multi-stakeholder workshops bringing NGOs and local governments from left and right together—a learning journey.
