MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivia's ambitious plan to reduce poverty

Bolivia announced a massive plan involving 12 billion US dollars to reduce poverty and creating jobs.

"The goal of the plan is to achieve a sovereign, productive and democratic Bolivia, with people making a decent living", said Development and Planning minister Carlos Villegas. "We want to reduce poverty, extreme poverty by 35% at the end of the period (2006/2010), creating 100.000 jobs a year. The funding will come from the recent nationalization of the gas industry plus international lending and foreign investment", added Villegas.

Overall investment is estimated in 12 billion US dollars of which the Bolivian government will provide 7 billion, with "the economy growing at a steady 7.6% by the end of the period compared to 4% in 2006".

Some of the immediate aims are delivering more basic public services such as school meals and better access to clean and drinkable water.

"This is the first time Bolivia has a long term vision and a short term effective plan to combat poverty and misery", said Villegas. The plan is designed to "dismantle centuries of colonialism as well as the neo-liberalism that invaded the country in the past few decades" in direct reference to the open market policies sponsored by the International Monetary Fund and United States.

However the architecture to achieve these goals will be built on "pillars of macroeconomic stability and institutional policy" of a developing democracy in the framework of the rule of the law.

Bolivia's Socialist reformist administration aims to cut budget deficit from 3.1% of gross domestic product, (approximately 270 million US dollars) to 2.1% and lower unemployment from 8.4 to 4%.

Special priority is given to rural communities of peasant farmers and Indians that will receive the needed support to become self-sufficient in food production. Villegas also warned that "unproductive" land and/or settlements will be distributed among landless peasants and Indians.

President Evo Morales administration set the goals: drinking water for 3.9 million people; housing for 460,000 families; natural gas links to 160,000 homes and teaching 1.2 million adults to read and write.

Implementing radical changes in Bolivia has the support of Morales supporters and most of the population, however wealthy Bolivians and foreign investors are restless about the pace and outcome of the process in South America's country with the highest percentage of poor people, 85%.