Engaged environmental governance in farming communities in the Río Grande Basin – Bolivia

The materials featured here reflect the work undertaken within the framework of the programme “Engaged environmental governance in farming communities in the Río Grande basin”, which the Basque NGDO Zabalketa and the Bolivian training institute Instituto de Capacitación del Oriente-ICO have undertaken both in the Department of Cusco and at the university and at colleges in the Basque Country.

This programme has run from 2016 through to 2019, and has been financed jointly by the Basque Government’s Agency for Cooperation for Development.

The programme’s field operations have taken place in the Department of Santa Cruz in Bolivia, with support activities in the three Basque provinces: Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa.

The work in Bolivia has involved 36 farming communities in three municipalities: Comarapa, Pampagrande, and Vallegrande, while in the Basque Country it has extended to seven educational centres in six municipalities: Donostia, Erandio, Errenteria, Muskiz, Tolosa, and Vitoria-Gasteiz.

The programme’s aim has been to help local stakeholders in development to build and engage with a local management model based on criteria of environmental sustainability, furthermore incorporating socio-political and economic dimensions.

This objective has been attained by working on the following four lines:

LINE 1: Implementation of mechanisms for the ENGAGEMENT of men and women in rural areas in local environmental management

LINE 2: Improving the ORGANISATIONAL skills of community stakeholders for defending their environmental rights based on gender equality

LINE 3: Reinforcing institutional CAPABILITIES for territorial organisation and management

LINE 4: Improving the SUSTAINABILITY of the natural resources involved in socio-economic processes.