The document has been elaborated in UDAPE by a team of specialists who where asked to take into account the results of the National Dialogue 2 and of the participatory events that were also organized the Bolivian Bishops Conference, the private institutions of development, the small producers and the denominated Political Agenda. This reference is enough to stress the difficulties that the team of UDAPE faced to produce a proposal that could satisfy at the same time the international credit organizations, government's parties and the thousands of leaders of political and social organizations of the country that participated with enthusiasm and creativity in those events.

It was possible to anticipate that the Strategy would not please all and it will probably cause also some protests. All those that converged into those dialogue events took their demands and aspirations, and they will surely review in detail the Strategy to see if their idea was picked up.

Beyond that reading, I find important to take into account two elements that may help us to evaluate the Strategy.

In the first place, we have to analyze the proposal in its real possibilities. And they are marked by the conditions of the program HIPC 2 that allows the Bolivian government to carry out investments to reduce the poverty instead of paying a part of the foreign debt. It has been estimated that the yearly amounts will reach 90 million annual dollars approximately during next 15 years. They are quite important and their use may have real impacts if we use them with wisdom. But we cannot expext them to solve poverty. To overcome it won't only depend on what the international cooperation or the government does, but of what we all make every day.

In this sense, the Strategy doesn't pick up the commitments that we, the citizens of this country, are willing to assume. But let us don't toss the blame to the document. Neither the dialogues picked up those commitments, because all participants were rather concentrated on what the governments should do, reproducing an "statolatric" culture that frequently it immobilizes and allows us to avoid responsibilities.

Secondly, it is necessary to recognize that there were two alternatives not necessarily coincident. To make use of the HIPC money we could decide in what we should invest it, and big priorización efforts were met in the dialogues. On the other hand, we could decide how the investments may be defined, and the topic was also considered in the dialogues, where the participants agreed that those resources should be distributed to the municipalities according to the magnitude and incidence of the poverty in them. The Strategy picks up both alternatives at the same time but the one that will really work is the second one if the Law of the National Dialogue is finnally approved. According to the Law, the HIPC resources would go directly to the municipal governments based on a simple but effective formula: the more poverty, the more resources. Although they have the same population, El Alto would receive much more than Cochabamba. And the municipalities of Arque and Bolivar would receive more resources per capita than Quillacollo and Punata.

Once they receive the money, the municipalities will decide how to invest it and the Strategy will be only a general reference for its decision, because their priorities not necessarily coincide with those of the average.

It may be more efficient to invest those resources in programs of more impact or social profitability in the long term. But the participants of the dialogues, and with them the government, did not take this option. They rather choose justness or equity in the short term. To transform equity in efficiency will be the challenge that we will have to assume at each municipality and community level if we really want to multiply those resources to solve our problems.

In consequence, it doesn´t really matter to discuss the contents or the ideological orientation of the Strategy or to what extent the PSRP picks up the results of the dialogues. What it truly matters is to continue fighting so that the municipal governments are sensitive to their people's necessities, efficient when assigning resources and carrying out investments, flexible to adapt to the changes, open to people's aspirations and able to mobilize the social energy toward the public good.

The bet in Bolivia is, it continues being, for democracy and institucionality. We should remember this every time that impatience threatens to control our behavior.

(Published in spanish in Los Tiempos, March 4, 2001, and La Razón, March 5, 2001).