In the debates that occur between the organizations that deal with infrastructure/energy themes and the impact on the economy, society and the environment there are distinct analyses and, consequently, also strategies that follow different routes, but, in essence they tend to converge. The most important perspective that Ecoa and a few groups bring to the debate with the members of the Infrastructure and Energy Articulation in South America and also other groups outside the Articulation are analyses and proposals that take into account the following:

a)The government-driven regional integration project known as IIRSA continues to exist on its website, its advertising and meetings between officials, but in terms of infrastructure in South America, the concepts and the policies that it originally encompassed are now low profile and have little real impact. The initiative was prepared during the 90’s with governments that had other agendas in very different world context. The main policy was to promote integration of energy, communication and transport. Seeing the results achieved it’s possible to state that for the most part it was a failure since the only area that improved in anything was transportation by roads and the feeling of a more internal “integration” of the countries and not to promote access to external markets of distinct regions as proposed originally. There has been no advance in communication and energy integration. The numbers promoted on the website, such as “40% of execution in the X axis” are misleading because they  take into account small projects such as bridges and border crossing improvements (which would have been completed with or without IIRSA).

b)There are large infrastructure projects pending coming up in zones of great environmental sensitivity, such as the Amazon, outside the  IIRSA framework and with different goals –such as creating regional growth centers like Manaus. For example BR 319 highway.

c)Facing this general scenario it’s necessary to consider that the action of Civil Society organizations in an independent manner is more difficult for different reasons. One of these reasons is that the current Leftist Governments have engaged many people who were previously involved in Civil Society, leading to a blurring between the government and civil sectors in several countries.