Plurinational State of Bolivia

UNODC together with the Government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the third largest coca-producing country, collaborate in alternative development programmes, which focus on poverty alleviation through income generation activities and environmental protection. Since the early 1980s, UNODC has been supporting grass-roots alternative development projects to help farmers to develop licit farming alternatives to coca cultivation in the Cochabamba Tropics and the Yungas of La Paz regions. Agro-forestry and forest management Between 1997 and 2005, UNODC and the Food and Agriculture Organization through the Jatun Sach'a project jointly developed forest management and agro-forestry systems that benefited over 10,000 households. In 2006, building on the achievements and experiences of the Jatun Sach'a project, a new four-year phase of the agro-forestry programme was launched, which will benefit 4,500 families. These projects enable farmers to earn decent incomes through products such as cocoa, coffee, camu-camu (a tropical plant) and rubber. Produced under environment-friendly conditions, these products are commercially viable and obtain competitive prices in export markets. Producers' capacities for quality improvements and for meeting international standards were upgraded. As a result, the project-supported coffee is now among the best coffee produced in Bolivia. Vocational training and support for small businesses Since 2001, UNODC in collaboration with the International Labour Organization has supported vocational training to young people and increased their employment prospective. To date, over 1,000 vocational training courses ranging from agriculture to computer science and business administration benefited 23,000 young persons. The project has also supported the setting up of 90 new micro-enterprises and the strengthening of 122 existing ones, which employed over 2,000 individuals.  The project successfully ensured gender equality where 49 percent of trainees in vocational training and 46 percent of participants in micro-enterprise support programme were women. Furthermore, many women trainees received help establishing small businesses, which in turn made them self-reliant.