USAID/OTI Bolivia Field Report
September 2005
Program Description
The USAID Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) Bolivia program promotes peaceful participation in El Alto and other marginalized communities and increases access to balanced information on issues of national importance. OTI also expands economic opportunity by supporting short-term, community-based activities in distressed areas, such as El Alto and the altiplano, which are designed to increase self-reliance. Issues affecting youth and indigenous groups are cross-cutting themes in all of OTI/Bolivia's work. In response to Bolivia's ongoing political crisis, OTI is working closely with the transitional government to meet critical needs and help the country prepare for elections. OTI's implementing partner is Casals & Associates. The budget in fiscal year 2004 was $6.3 million and in fiscal year 2005 is $5.5 million.
Country Situation
General and prefectural elections – A deepening political crisis threatened the postponement of national elections for President, Vice President, legislators and prefects (i.e. governors), scheduled for December 4. Petitions questioning the constitutionality of the upcoming elections were filed with Bolivia's Constitutional Tribunal by a bloc of legislators from Santa Cruz, requesting that Congressional seats be redistributed based on the most recent national census conducted in 2001 prior to new elections. As a result of that census, the departments of Santa Cruz and Cochabamba would gain seats and La Paz, Oruro and Potosi would lose seats.
The Tribunal announced in late September that an election held under the existing plan would indeed be unconstitutional and that seats would have to be redistributed. Following the announcement, departments that stood to lose seats threatened to boycott the elections. President Rodriguez responded by unequivocally stating that he would abide by the original terms of his temporary appointment and leave office on January 22, whether or not a new administration was in place by that time. A final decision on seat redistribution is now in the hands of the Congress who, along with the Constitutional Tribunal, are debating the constitutionality and viability of proposals that could generate a solution. Should the issue remain unresolved by October 20, the final day for the Tribunal to approve modification the list of candidates, the National Electoral Court would be forced to delay elections.
Candidate preferences – According to the results of a poll released in September by an independent research firm Apoyo, Opinión y Mercado, Movement to Socialism (MAS) candidate Evo Morales leads the presidential race with 28 percent of potential votes for the elections. The two other leading candidates, former Bolivian president Jorge Quiroga and businessman Samuel Doria Medina, are in second (22 percent) and third place (19 percent) respectively. Competing political parties and commentators claimed that a disproportionate number of those surveyed were from rural areas that voted overwhelmingly for Morales in last year's municipal elections in an effort to discredit the results.
In last the 12 months, about 500,000 new voters registered by the September 5 deadline for participation in the upcoming elections, a significant increase since the December 2004 municipal elections. The CNE reports that close to four million Bolivians are now registered to vote. Working in collaboration with both civil society organizations and the government, OTI is implementing seven projects for $584,000 to help disenfranchised populations acquire necessary documentation to participate in political processes.
In other election news, the Mayor of El Alto, Juan Luis Paredes, whose approval ratings have consistently been among the highest of Bolivian mayors, announced his intention to run for prefect of La Paz under the umbrella of Tuto Quiroga's "Podemos" alliance. His decision reflects the strengthened role that prefectures are likely to have if the country begins movement towards autonomy. The Constitutional Tribunal also ruled this month that Bolivians living abroad would, for the first time in the nation's history, be permitted to vote in national elections. This change will become effective after the upcoming elections.
The hydrocarbons issue – The Rodriquez Administration largely resolved a national crisis over how the government will distribute proceeds from the new direct tax on hydrocarbons. Under the terms of the government's new proposal, the government will distribute $10 per person through the 327 municipalities and nine public universities of Santa Cruz, La Paz, and Cochabamba. In the wake of this announcement, protestors ended the largest blockades and demonstrations in Bolivia's three largest cities. Rodriguez asked the Congress to modify the new Hydrocarbons Law to meet the terms of the new proposal and satisfy the demands of protestors.
OTI Highlights
A. Grants Activity Summary
During September, OTI/Bolivia approved 11 new grants for $468,340, making a total of 218 grants for $7.4 million since March 2004.
Several of the newly approved grants involve elections-related civic education, information diffusion and dialogue. One is a three-month project, implemented through a local indigenous group, which will provide the Chiquitanía region of Santa Cruz with key political information regarding the upcoming elections. Through better-informed participation, the project seeks to encourage more conscious and thoughtful political action by indigenous peoples, both at the grass-roots and leadership levels. The grant will fund 42 workshops and fairs strategically located so as to reach the nearly 500 Chiquitano communities.
A second grant will replicate a successful project that OTI funded prior to the 2004 municipal elections by distributing biographies of the candidates in El Alto and La Paz running for uninominal congressional seats and for the La Paz prefecture. A local grantee will produce 50,000 copies of the biographies for distribution through local NGO networks and through presentations at 100 Alteño and Paceño high schools. In addition, the grantee will produce a webpage that will continue to update these profiles until the election and then would function as a social control website to monitor performance of the candidates elected. Other media campaign projects will touch upon economic development and the land titling issue.
| Community Development and Economic Opportunity |
3 |
$ 99,500 |
77 |
$2,288,926 |
| Civic Education for Emerging Leaders |
|
|
25 |
$ 847,009 |
| Information Diffusion and Dialogue |
7 |
$298,840 |
80 |
$3,261,387 |
| School Reconstruction and Education |
1 |
$ 70,000 |
36 |
$1,035,967 |
| Total |
11 |
$468,340 |
218 |
$7,433,289 |
B. Indicators of Success
Legal registration and documentation for disenfranchised citizens – The USAID Mission Director participated in a ceremony in El Alto to distribute free, first-time birth certificates to 1,000 undocumented Alteños. The OTI-funded project aims to distribute 4,000 certificates in all. Because birth certificates are key documents for citizens' rights, including the right to vote and attend school, the event earned praise for USAID from a wide range of Bolivia's media.
Another documentation project, this one implemented through the National Electoral Court, provided 19,919 first-ever birth certificates and 7,656 corrected certificates, surpassing the project distribution goal by 2,000 certificates. Lastly, a complementary identity project, implemented through the Ministry of Government, is leading to long-term improvements in the citizenship process. A new computerized system designed specifically for this project will register and provide national identification cards to up to 50,000 rural citizens, and will become a model for the Ministry's National Identification Office. Processing time under the new system has been reduced from 24+ hours to 10 minutes. To date, identification cards have been provided to nearly 6,000 newly registered citizens.
Inaugural rural demand fair – During September OTI funded a demand driven trade fair in Cochabamba. While OTI has collaborated with a local partner on demand fairs in several cities, the San Benito Fair marked the first fair in a rural area. The municipality made 60 percent, or about $100,000, of its annual operating budget for public projects and procurements available for competitive bidding to 1,000 micro- and small-entrepreneurs from Cochabamba, La Paz, and Oruro. This fair, as with its predecessors in urban areas, provided a precedent setting opportunity for small business to access the municipal procurement process. As small businesses are the largest employer in the country, expanding their operations is a key way to create jobs and help the government respond to the demand to jumpstart the economy.
Job creation through exports – Less than two months after becoming operational, a garment embellishment center funded by OTI is achieving successes beyond its original goals. The facility which is staffed by 252 previously unemployed women from a community-based organization began with an agreement from textile exporter AMETEX to embellish up to 15,000 garments monthly for export. With market assistance from USAID project Bolivian Trade and Competitiveness, the center has received orders from two new contractors and has increased production by about 30 percent, which will allow it to employ more workers.
Next Steps/Immediate Priorities
In October, OTI/Bolivia will continue to support election-related information diffusion and civic education activities as elections approach to ensure that indigenous and rural populations have the same access to information about the political process as their urban counterparts.
For further information, please contact:
In Washington, D.C: Amy Frumin, LAC Program Manager, 202-712-4231, afrumin@usaid.gov
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