USAID Helps Transform the Chapare;
Remove Bolivia from the Drug Economy
The Chapare is visibly being transformed.
Once a haven for lawlessness and narco-trafficking,
the Chapare -- as Bolivia’s Cochabamba Tropics is popularly
known -- is now home to thousands of hectares of legal crops
and pastureland, well-maintained farm-to-market roads, breathtaking
natural beauty and tourism opportunities, and an increasingly
vibrant economy.
USAID/Bolivia has helped drive this transformation. Drawing
on aggressive policies and with significant support from United
States, Bolivia is eradicating illegal coca and interdicting
cocaine with stronger law enforcement and at the same time
offering farm families long term alternatives to coca with
creative development programs.
Cocaine has been commonly produced throughout South America’s
Andean region. In the 1980s, Bolivia was one of the leading
suppliers of cocaine to the United States. During this time,
Bolivia’s Chapare region, where almost all of the country’s
illegal coca was grown, was a “no-man’s land”
of impunity and crime. Drug traffickers ruled the area, using
bribes and force to ensure cocaine production and export went
unimpeded. At the peak of the country’s cocaine production
in the late 1980’s-early 1990’s, the Chapare was
home to about 35,000 hectares of coca. Legal crops covered
an equal number of hectares.
But the successful implementation of Bolivia’s “Dignity
Plan” is dramatically reversing the Chapare’s
illegal coca growth and converting the area into a vibrant
legitimate economy. Between the early 1990’s and 2003,
the area committed to coca dropped by over 85 percent -- from
33,000 to 4,500 hectares. Meanwhile the area committed to
legal crops has more than tripled from 41,000 to over 135,000
hectares during the same period.
Since 1983, the Bolivia USAID Mission has invested over $270
million in alternative development. Most of this assistance
has supported market-led and private sector-driven agricultural
growth, and subsequently increased trade in Bolivian crops.
The programs have introduced: a) new crops and agricultural
research; b) extended and improved plant materials; c) productive
infrastructure; d) electrification; e) stronger market linkages
and producer groups; f) a vast network of all-weather cobblestone
farm-to-market roads; g) investment promotion; and h) environmental
mitigation.
These efforts are cementing Bolivians’ national will
to rebuild its legitimate agricultural economy. The proof
lies in the statistics:
• Despite eradication, the Chapare population increased
12 percent between 1992 to 2001, as farm families migrated
there to seek opportunities in the growing legal economy.
• Average family agricultural income rose above 30
percent -- well above the national average – to about
$2,270 a year.
• The wholesale value of all legal farm production
rose 33 percent between 2000-2003 to around $37 million.
• The total number of boxes of banana exports rose
to over 1.3 million between 2002-2003, an increase of nearly
80 percent.
• The value of private sector investment in the Chapare
(excluding petroleum and lumber) grew 163 percent to $68.5
million since 1999.
• Over 1,300 kilometers of all-weather roads have
been significantly improved; and
• Farmer producer associations now number over 540,
up 300 percent since 1999.
The Mission is proud of its successes, but it has also learned
that to significantly reduce coca cultivation and to provide
economic alternatives requires a committed will to strengthen
the state presence and to improve social conditions. To this
end, USAID/Bolivia has initiated new campaigns to strengthen
democratic local governance, conflict resolution, land titling
and the delivery of priority social services. These new efforts
are critical to gain wider support for alternative development
against Bolivia’s backdrop of economic recession, conflict,
and frail political foundation.
“The Chapare’s transformation is truly remarkable,”
said Liliana Ayalde, the USAID Mission Director. “We
are confidently optimistic and committed to do what needs
to be done to keep Bolivia out of the international coca-cocaine
circuit.”
She also noted that lessons learned in Bolivia, especially
in coordination between law enforcement and alternative development,
as well as long-term investments required to sustain legitimate
economic development, can be applied by USAID in other challenging
places, including Afghanistan.
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