Building Local Capacity and Economic Opportunity for a Better Future

Bolivia is at a turning point in its history. Recurring social instability exists around issues such as the government’s fiscal dilemma, coca cultivation and its fractious social effects, land tenure, longstanding ethnic tensions, and significant poverty.

CHF helped local governments shift from reactive to proactive responses to social demands by helping them break the cycle of citizen dissatisfaction, engage citizens in participatory strategic planning, and prioritize projects with the greatest social and productive impacts. CHF implemented the following programs in Bolivia:

MCCLE

The Managing Conflict through Capacity, Leadership, and Employment (MCCLE) Program, operating throughout various communities of El Alto, directly addressed two of the primary root causes of conflict in Bolivia: insufficient government capacity to identify, manage, and mitigate conflict while effectively addressing constituents’ demands; and youth disaffection and disillusionment due to lack of opportunity and positive choices. MCCLE focused on the following components:

> Prefectura Capacity Building: Through conflict management training and strategic planning, MCCLE enhanced the La Paz Prefectura—the equivalent of a statelevel government entity—and its new Conflict Management Unit’s ability to proactively respond to community grievances, and to identify, manage and mitigate conflict. As a result of the successful creation of this Conflict Management Unit within the La Paz Prefectura, which adopted CHF’s conflict management model, Prefecturas from Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Pando, Beni and Oruro have expressed an interest in contracting CHF to implement and train a similar Unit within their institutions.

> Youth Employment: Vocational training courses, based on the specific needs of local firms in El Alto and La Paz, improved the marketability of youth in El Alto and provided businesses with the quality manpower they needed to be competitive. The MCCLE program surpassed its deliverables by bringing together a team of leading Bolivian organizations, including Entra21 and Nur University. To date, 450 youth (81% of the MCCLE program graduates) have found permanent jobs. 1,500 El Alto youth trained in leadership skills describe themselves as “leaders rather than followers, more constructive family and community members, capable of making decisions independently, and of mitigating and solving conflicts.”

> Youth Leadership: MCCLE worked to build a new generation of Bolivian leaders, trained in analytical thinking, decisionmaking skills, civic responsibility and democratic values.

INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM (PDI)

The Integrated Development Grants Program (PDI Grants Program), implemented by CHF in the Chapare region of Bolivia, seeked to support the Government of Bolivia’s alternative development efforts. CHF provided technical assistance and grants to Bolivian producers associations, road maintenance associations, indigenous groups, farming communities, and municipalities for social and economic infrastructure projects, tourism initiatives, micro-enterprise development, and literacy and leadership training for women and youth. Using such a comprehensive process ensured that all aspects of the PDI grants program fostered sustainable long-term development in the region.

CHF operated under three pillars:

> Community Development in which CHF’s goal was to transform local communities in the Chapare from conflict-based organizations to leaders of their own peaceful democratic development processes;

> Municipal Strengthening in which CHF supported the improvement of local governments’ capacity to provide quality services to their constituents, and;

> Economic Development in which CHF worked directly with producer organizations and small businesses to help improve their competitiveness in products such as banana, heart of palm, pineapple, cattle, dairy and processed tropical juices.

ARTETROPIC:

Through the Economic Development Component, the Crafts Center at CHF International provided technical crafts assistance and support to 110 artisans living in the Chapare. Training covered market research and trends identification, quality control, packaging and customer service. Key to this support was ensuring the sustainability of the artisans’ markets by helping them identify, create, and maintain market linkages.

In the first four months of the program, participating women saw their incomes increase by 100% to a net income of 400 Bolivianos per month (about US$50). The Crafts Center has also helped the artisans develop over 80 new designs—which include high-quality home decorating products such as baskets, coasters and small boxes—to sell directly to local and regional stores. By diversifying their market base, the Crafts Center enabled the artisans to become less reliant on the seasonal tourism market, while broadening their product line to reach new markets.

(More about the Crafts Center: www.craftscenter.org)