Community Empowerment Facility Profile

BACKGROUND

Access to land is a major issue in Bolivia, as well as in many other neighbouring countries. Fifty years after the agrarian reform, the rural population has doubled while land distribution has remained the same. An agreement between the State and some landowners gave a few large landholders many fertile soils in the eastern regions of the country, on the understanding that the lands would be cultivated - a condition which has not been fully complied with. On the contrary, there is a huge dispersion of property in the western part of the country where land parcelization is increasing, thus affecting soil productivity.

In 1996, the INRA bill (National Institute for Agrarian Reform), tried to tackle this problem in a holistic manner. Its main objectives were:

• determine a land distribution system in compliance with the priorities in each municipality;
• regulate the land distribution/access system;
• guarantee tenure rights and land claims.

The expected outcome was not met for several reasons: (a) some aspects were neglected in the preparatory stage and therefore the bill did not cover some existing realities; (b) where there has been some implementation of the bill, this has been extremely slow, costly and ineffective; (c) in many cases the final result has been manipulated by vested interests, and, (d) beneficiary communities were often not informed of the ongoing reform and as a result impact has been very limited, although there were some minor changes in 1997.

Unequal land distribution in Bolivia has been recognized by both domestic as well as international stakeholders, to be the major factor of poverty, as well as nurturing further conflicts. 

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GOAL AND OBJECTIVES

The overall objective of this six-month project was the promotion of the Common Platform on Access to Land in the national debate. As a preparatory step, a short consultative process was carried out in 33 municipalities, the main focus of which was the relationship between land, territory and rural development. The results of these consultations have provided important inputs to stimulate debate on land issues and agrarian reform in Bolivia. The current project is based also on these results and identified needs. 

Specific objectives are:

• Promote and facilitate alliances among those involved and affected by the agrarian questions in order to set a Common Platform on Access to Land.
• Empower and build capacity for peasants and indigenous groups to increase their participation and negotiating capacity in decision-making process on land issues.

To fulfil this empowerment process and to fully promote a common alliance, some expected outcomes are:

• A local radio campaign on Platform issues.
• Creation of space for consensus-building debates with the contribution of rural actors from six different municipalities. Potential common ground between local rural people demands access to natural resources; the Common Platform approach on access to land will be identified during the debates.
• Inputs for discussion and further debates on adjustments in agrarian policies will be provided through requests from previous consultations, as well as from the Common Platform process.
• An exchange of lessons learnt and identified gaps between diverse communities will be promoted to encourage the formation of alliances.
• The issue of fairer access to land will eventually be part of the National Agenda, by means of spreading requests nationally.

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WHO WILL BENEFIT?

Beneficiaries of the project will be peasant families and indigenous groups, together with rural producers and all those affected by the agrarian concern:

•  Rural workers' organizations in Bolivia.
•  Associations of municipalities at departmental level and municipal rural governments.
•  Associations of producers and economic organizations of farmers.

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CONCLUSION

Fundación Tierra commenced activities in 1991 with the aim of advancing the agrarian agenda to stimulate rural development on a national scale. Land soon became the Organization's core activity, specializing in land-related issues such as, land access and land tenure problems. Today it is acknowledged as a reliable interlocutor on agrarian reform by both governmental institutions, farmers and indigenous' groups. Fundación Tierra strives to encourage democratization in patterns of access, tenancy and use of domestic natural resources.  It promotes local participation in the defining rural development paths.

Fundación Tierra is a member of the International Land Coalition. The present project is a follow-on of another aimed at collecting material for the creation of an information centre on land reform, capable of assisting research and promulgating good practices. The current project further promotes and strengthens land alliances. Initially, a radio campaign will be based on publicity to solicit public attention to the Common Platform and identify areas of work.  Supportive material will be distributed at six preparatory workshops to be organized in the selected municipalities. At the same time, panelists and experts will be chosen for the radio programme from grass-roots organizations and local institutions.  A timeframe will be fixed for the programme. Finally, there will be a weekly radio programme for the promotion of the Common Platform on access to Land. In order to ensure full understanding of the issues, participation in all the activities will be carried out in Spanish and in indigenous languages, Queucha and Aymara.

A remarkable aspect of the implementation is the methodology used by our partner. A bottom-up approach has paved the way to collect meaningful data and ideas from the field. The follow-up of a strategic plan to make best use of the collected information has also been prepared by them. Finally, a top-down approach permits the public to be presented with a systematic account of previous experiences. At this point, the organization will be ready to disseminate the first results and collect and elaborate other requests and information. Results of this project will constitute the backbone for further investigation and research. In fact, the project a Common Platform will be included in the Organization's institutional strategy as well as its 2005-2009 Action Plan. Land will continue to be a 'buzzword' for the national policy agenda. The proposal is fully in line with the plan of collaboration between the International Land Coalition and Fundación Tierra.   

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