Parasitic diseases, including scabies and pediculosis, pose significant public health concerns, particularly in developing countries. Despite their non-lethal nature, these diseases can cause considerable morbidity. This study aimed to assess the national and subnational burden of scabies and pediculosis in Ecuador during 2021 and explore the spatial correlations between these diseases and environmental factors. An observational, cross-sectional study was conducted using 2021 outpatient data from Ecuador’s Ministry of Public Health. Municipal incidence rates were calculated for scabies (ICD-10 B86) and pediculosis (ICD-10 B85). Local Indicators of Spatial Association analysis was performed to identify epidemiological hot and cold spots. Associations with climatic variables (rainfall, temperature and altitude) were examined using Wilcoxon tests and ordinary least squares regression. A total of 20 722 scabies cases and 3558 pediculosis cases were identified, with national incidences of 118.45 and 20.33 per 100 000 population, respectively. Both diseases were more frequent in women. Scabies hot spots were located in the Coast and Amazon regions and associated with higher rainfall, higher temperature and lower altitude. Pediculosis hot spots were located exclusively in the Amazon region and associated with higher rainfall and higher altitude. Climatic factors explained 24.3% of scabies variance but only 6.3% for pediculosis. This study underscores the importance of climatic and socio-environmental factors in the transmission of scabies and pediculosis and provides valuable epidemiological data for future control efforts in Ecuador.

Changes in settlement patterns are often argued to reflect climatic change, which may make certain areas more or less hospitable depending on the adaptability of subsistence practices. This study models the impact of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events on phases of occupation and abandonment over the past 4500 years at Pashimbi in the Ecuadorian Amazon. While earlier occupations and abandonments seem to correlate with climatic events, associations post-3000 BP are less clear, potentially indicating that populations adapted to wetter conditions and, the authors argue, that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation was not the main determinant in the decision to abandon settlements.

NGOs have taken up an increasing number of roles and responsibilities in Latin American societies. Based on a study of the multi-stakeholder platform, the Water Resources Forum in Ecuador, this paper shows how through the creation of a broad network of NGOs, academics, grassroots water users organizations and governmental actors; this platform has been able to contribute to the democratization of water governance. This paper analyses the international and national socio-political context in which this platform developed and traces the history and strategies that marked its development. Based on this, it argues that NGOs can play an important role in the development of more democratic and inclusive public policy making in water governance, but that the capacity of NGOs to bring about change greatly depends on the socio-political context and on the networks they are able to forge with grassroots organizations, state agencies, funders and other third sector actors.

This paper presents a comparison of the legal and regulatory frameworks for civil society organizations (CSOs) in the Andean countries. Given the restrictive policies, CSOs are becoming policy entrepreneurs and identifying policy windows, that is, opportunities in public policies that are not inherently related to their sector. It focuses on the case of Ecuador and its 2010 higher education reform that requires universities to generate more research and to establish community outreach. The paper argues that while collaborations with universities might not bring substantial financial resources to CSOs, and that the roles and responsibilities in collaborative projects are constructed through a learning process, the higher education reform might have the potential to create win–win relationships among universities and CSOs. Opportunities like this, allow CSOs to demonstrate their expertise and experience in social development, and in doing so, gain, and in some cases regain, their legitimacy. In the process, CSOs might stave off further restrictive public policy.

Nongovernmental organization (NGO) networks have become key instruments used by NGOs in Latin America. Because these networks have important roles to play in advocating for the sector, earning public support, and improving the provision of public goods and services, understanding these networks is important to understanding the NGO sector more broadly. The article examines how NGO networks use collective texts to diffuse and adapt managerial practices. NGO networks use elements of managerialism and their adaptations to signal quality, secure recognition in social development, identify strengths and weaknesses of the sector, and define civil society in order to garner sector legitimacy. While looking at managerialism from a critical perspective, the article finds that understanding NGOs networks and the diffusion and adaption of NGO practices can further pinpoint effective sources of sector legitimacy and help to strengthen the sector’s role in social development.

In 2019 and 2022, Indigenous leaders mobilized rural comunas in general strikes that forced the national government of Ecuador to negotiate the terms of newly introduced fiscal and policy measures. These mobilizations came despite long-term demographic decline in these same rural comunas. Further, the ministries charged with granting this authority to comunas today exercise little oversight. Why, then, has the comuna persisted as the preferred form of local organization amid widespread shifts to postagrarian ways of life? We have approached this problem through field research in over a dozen rural comunas, a review of comuna registrations, interviews with comuna leadership, and intergenerational dialogues among comuna members. In practical terms, we find comuna leadership consolidating an agenda focused on infrastructure development in the place of activism for land or the pursuit of agricultural investments. At the same time, it is through rituals of registration and management that local authorities not only find legitimacy but also secure a measure of “cultural autonomy” insofar as comuna members associate the disciplined fulfillment of procedures with the historical expansion of social rights. As the younger generation pursues nonagrarian careers, older comuna members underscore the mutuality of comuna life and lay out a moral purpose and a pathway that in effect centers state procedure as essential for indigenous autonomy.

Artisanal-and-small-scale gold mining supports millions of livelihoods in the Global South but is the largest anthropogenic source of mercury emissions. Many initiatives promote mercury-free technologies that small miners could employ. Few document mercury impacts. We study an alternative: instead of processing themselves, small miners sell their ore to plants employing larger-scale, mercury-free technologies that also raise gold yields. Some ore-selling occurs without policy intervention, yet impacts on incomes and mercury use remain unclear. We assess ore-selling preferences of female waste-rock collectors (jancheras) in Ecuador, using a discrete-choice experiment. Results demonstrate that jancheras generally are open to ore-selling, yet often reject options similar to a recent pilot intervention. Offers that address formalization hurdles (invoicing), inabilities to meet quantity minima (given limits upon association, storage, and credit), and constraints on trust (including in plants’ ore testing) could increase adoption by tailoring related interventions to the preferences of and challenges for defined populations.

Este texto tiene un carácter exploratorio a partir de la experiencia etnográfica del levantamiento indígena y popular que paralizó Ecuador en el mes de junio de 2022. Con epicentro en Quito, la capital del país, dicha movilización fue la más larga de todas las que ha protagonizado el movimiento indígena ecuatoriano desde la década de 1990. El artículo reflexiona sobre las características de esta última protesta; señala sus diferencias con respecto a las movilizaciones de los años noventa y de los primeros años de este siglo XXI; y plantea algunas hipótesis sobre la nueva generación de líderes que están al frente de la organización indígena más importante del país, la CONAIE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador). El argumento principal que se explora es que la adopción de discursos y repertorios de protesta más orientados hacia una dimensión clasista que hacia una puramente etnoidentitaria ha sido la clave en la mayor capacidad de convocatoria del movimiento. Esto se reflejó en el masivo respaldo al llamado de la CONAIE contra las medidas neoliberales adoptadas por el Gobierno nacional.

Official Ecuadorian gross domestic product (GDP) data begin in 1950. Prior, only preliminary estimates were available, based on very scattered evidence and broad assumptions. In this paper, we estimate new GDP figures for Ecuador for 1900–50. These are based on the quantitative and qualitative information available for the period, using extensive primary and secondary sources. The new data series allows analysing Ecuador’s economic growth and structural change and comparing them to industrialised core countries and other countries in the region. Unlike previous estimates, our series shows a sustained divergence of Ecuador from the core countries during the first half of the 20th century.

Neurocysticercosis (NCC) is a neglected parasitic disease that causes neurological symptoms. However, little is known about the long-term impact of this infection on health. We contacted participants from a randomized controlled trial on albendazole treatment for NCC in Ecuador 12 years after trial completion (14–16 years after NCC diagnosis) about their long-term health. We described the symptoms experienced post-trial and investigated if albendazole treatment, the presence of calcified NC cysts, and cysts in extraparenchymal locations at last imaging predicted symptoms. All analyses were standardized by adjusting for participant age and sex. In the 12 years post-trial, 52.1% reported some health problem, with 48.9% reporting neurological symptoms such as seizures (16.6% of participants) and headaches (26.6% of participants). At the end of the trial, 11 participants had complete NCC cyst resolution, of whom 3 (27.3%) reported seizures and 1 (9.1%) reported headaches post-trial. Twenty-four participants had only calcified cysts (residual calcification sometimes left after the parasite dies) by trial end, of whom 8 (33.3%) reported seizures and 9 (37.5%) headaches post-trial. None of the predictors examined were significantly associated with long-term symptoms. A high proportion of people diagnosed with NCC continue experiencing symptoms years after treatment, and while slightly fewer people experienced continued symptoms in the albendazole group, the difference was not statistically significant. Eleven participants with no live parasites at last imaging (8 with residual calcifications) had seizures post-trial, which may be unprovoked and an indication of epilepsy risk. Research is urgently needed to improve NCC treatment to mitigate long-term outcomes.

Neurocysticercosis is a poorly understood infection of the central nervous system with Taenia solium larva, and the treatment often fails to kill all the parasitic larva. Most research on this infection has used patient-level data, looking at summaries of the encysted parasitic cysticercus burden. Cyst-level analysis is needed to identify factors that impact individual cyst trajectories and how that may vary based on characteristics of the patient, infection and cyst being followed. We disaggregated data on 221 cysts from 117 patients who participated in a trial evaluating the impact of albendazole treatment to identify factors that impact cyst evolution over time from the active to the degenerating and calcified phases, and eventual resolution. We found that having calcified cysts at baseline was associated with a faster rate of transition from the degenerative phase to calcified phase or resolution. Age and sex were not associated with cyst evolution in the main effect analysis, but after stratifying on treatment we found that the direction of some associations by patient age and sex was reversed for patients in the albendazole arm compared to those in the placebo arm. These findings suggest that differences in host immune response by sex and age as well as by past exposure, potentially indicated by having calcified cysts together with active cysts at baseline, are important to cyst evolution and may be modified by treatment. Future research is needed to assess if these differences suggest distinct treatment recommendations.

Burial 10 is a unique Manteño (AD 650–1532) burial from Buen Suceso, Ecuador, dating between AD 771 and 953. This burial included the remains of a young female, pregnant at the time of death and buried with an elaborate array of goods, including anachronistic spondylus ornaments, green stones, and shell eye coverings. Perimortem trauma, including a cranial fracture and cutmarks on hand bones, perimortem removal of the hands and left leg, and other body manipulation suggest she was sacrificed, a rare event for coastal Ecuadorian peoples.

Much scholarly attention has been paid to how great powers have used development finance as a tool for projecting power and shaping the international order, with less given to how smaller countries navigate these dynamics. This article investigates the conditions under which Latin American countries borrow from institutions led by the declining hegemon, the United States, or the rising power, China. Specifically, it uses mixed methods to analyze 518 loans from the World Bank and Chinese banks, and interviews with policymakers in Ecuador to highlight the mechanisms of decisions, outline interactions between different factors, and identify factors that cannot be readily tested statistically. Results show that countries are diversifying their development finance between the two great powers, motivated by domestic political considerations such as party ideology and economic development priorities, as well as by international structures including the balance of power and the borrowing country’s foreign policy alignment with the United States.