We should look to Bolivia for inspiration

[Judi Lynn]

We should look to Bolivia for inspiration
Bolivia under President Evo Morales is seeking a radical development model based on equality and environmental sustainability – and there are lessons we can all learn

In 2006, I was working at the UN in Mexico City, which happened to be hosting the World Water Forum that year. On the large civil society march (which the risk-averse UN security team had advised staff to stay away from) one sovereign government was represented: Bolivia. The message was that water was a public good, not a private commodity.

Water was the emblematic issue at the core of the peaceful revolution in Bolivia that had swept a new and radical government to power just two months earlier. Packed with new ministers who had been at the heart of the mass demonstrations in rejection of the privatisation of urban water, the new administration became one of the first governments in the world to enshrine the right to water in its constitution.

Bolivia has got used to standing alone in the international arena. In last year's climate talks in Cancún, in Mexico, it was the only one of the UN's 192 member countries to vote against a deal it – along with most scientific experts – considered insufficient to tackle critical levels of global warming.

Bolivia is the conscience of the world on climate change and sustainable development. Global warming is not a theoretical issue in Bolivia. One-third of its Andean glaciers have melted, and a further third are expected to melt in the next 10 years. Rather than compromise in international forums, it is sticking to its guns, buoyed by mass meetings such as the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba in 2010.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/apr/19/bolivia-inspiration-development-model-evo-morales