The Real World: The Pangue Hydro Project Revisited

In a past column I reported on the controversy surrounding the construction of the Pangue Hydroelectric Project by the Chilean power company ENDESA, an undertaking funded by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector lending arm of the World Bank Group (see Practicing Anthropology 19(4): 35-36, Fall 1997). That column focussed on the experience of anthropologist Theodore Downing, who was retained by the IFC to evaluate the Pehuen Foundation, an organization established to channel a portion of revenues from the Pangue Project for the long-term benefit of the indigenous Pehuenche communities affected by the dam.