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2017-09-08
Oxfam;
This case study takes a retrospective look at the 2010-11 Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG-ECHO) Small-Scale Disaster Project in La Paz and the context within which it took place. Our research found that absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities can be fostered by iterative development processes. It also demonstrated that disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation are strongly tied to resilient, sustainable, long-term development. Resilience, however, is not an a priori conceptual framework of development programming; rather it is a life process engendered within specific communities. Consequently, development practitioners must construct programs based on rigorous, ethical, and sound research integrating scientific with local and ancestral knowledge. This is the only approach that can generate environmentally healthy and productive, sustainable, and equitable life systems.
This report is part of a series that seeks to draw lessons from resilience projects in Latin America and the Pacific. Follow the links below to the other papers in the series:
Addressing Water Shortages: A catalyst for more resilient development in Fiji
"Disaster is Nature Telling Us How to Live Resiliently": Indigenous disaster risk reduction, organizing, and spirituality in Tierradentro, Colombia
Learning from Hindsight: Synthesis report on Oxfam resilience research
This research was conducted with the support of the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies.
2017-07-24
Oxfam GB;
This evaluation is presented as part of the Effectiveness Review Series 2015/16, selected for review under the resilience thematic area. This report documents the findings of a quasi-experimental evaluation carried out in April 2015 of the ‘Supporting communities in Bolivia to adapt to changing weather patterns and improve their livelihoods’ project. It sought to assess the success the project had in enabling households that directly participated in the camellones to strengthen their livelihoods, to minimise risk from shocks and to adapt to emerging trends and uncertainty.
The project was carried out by Oxfam in partnership with the Kenneth Lee Foundation in several communities of the municipality of Trinidad in the Beni Region of Bolivia between 2010 and 2013. The key activities of this project (together with its predecessor, launched in 2008) were to construct and promote the use of ‘camellones’, an indigenous land-management system intended to protect livelihoods (agriculture and fish farming) against drought or flood.
Read more about Oxfam's Effectiveness Reviews.
2016-10-01
World Resources Institute (WRI);
A new report offers evidence that the modest investments needed to secure land rights for indigenous communities will generate billions in returns—economically, socially and environmentally—for local communities and the world's changing climate. The report, Climate Benefits, Tenure Costs: The Economic Case for Securing Indigenous Land Rights, quantifies for the first time the economic value of securing land rights for the communities who live in and protect forests, with a focus on Colombia, Brazil, and Bolivia.
2016-10-01
World Resources Institute (WRI);
A new report offers evidence that the modest investments needed to secure land rights for indigenous communities will generate billions in returns—economically, socially and environmentally—for local communities and the world's changing climate. The report, Climate Benefits, Tenure Costs: The Economic Case for Securing Indigenous Land Rights, quantifies for the first time the economic value of securing land rights for the communities who live in and protect forests, with a focus on Colombia, Brazil, and Bolivia.
2016-05-31
Global Handwashing Partnership;
In 2014 hundreds of millions of people rallied around the slogan "Choose handwashing, choose health" and celebrated Global Handwashing Day. This report tells the story of Global Handwashing Day in 2014.
2016-05-05
World Bank Group;
In recent years, skills development has become a priority among developed and developing countries alike. The World Bank Group, in its quest to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity, has joined efforts with countries and multilateral development partners to ensure that individuals have access to quality education and training opportunities and that employers can find the skills they need to operate. The skills towards employability and productivity (STEP) skills measurement program is part of the World Bank's portfolio of analytical products on skills. The STEP program consists of two survey instruments that collect information on the supply and demand for skills in urban areas: a household survey and an employer survey. STEP has been implemented in waves, the first surveys being implemented in seven countries in 2012 (Bolivia, Colombia, Ghana, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (PDR), Ukraine, Vietnam, and the Yunnan Province in China), and the second in five countries in 2013 (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kenya, and Macedonia, Former Yugoslav Republic of (FYR)). The data presented in this publication correspond to these countries. It illustrates the similarities and differences among groups that have completed different education levels on a wide range of issues and outcomes. Section one analyzes the trajectory of skills acquisition: participation in early childhood education programs, educational attainment by gender, and participation in training and apprenticeship programs. Section two explores background conditions associated with educational attainment, including the socioeconomic status of survey respondents at age 15, the educational attainment of their parents, their households' asset levels, their health (as expressed by the presence of chronic illness), and their overall satisfaction with life. Section three covers cognitive skills: writing, numeracy, and reading (which is also evaluated through a direct reading assessment). Section four covers job-relevant skills, which are task-specific and which respondents possess or use on the job; and section five covers socio-emotional skills, using established metrics to measure personality and behavior. Section six covers the status of survey respondents in the labor market: whether they are employed, unemployed, or inactive.
2015-05-01
Greenpeace;
This report provides a resource to the donor community to facilitate the provision of support to ecological farming across Africa. Donor is defined broadly including: governments providing bilateral overseas development assistance, multilateral financial institutions, philanthropies, and international (UN) development organisations.It focuses on four primary channels as effective conduits for scaling up investment into ecological farming: academic and public research and training institutions; communityseed banks and exchange networks; public procurement schemes and producer organisations and cooperatives. It analysed eleven ecological farming initiatives from around the world involving support from donor organisations.
2015-04-23
Oxfam International;
Climate change is affecting glaciers worldwide, and the vulnerability and sensitivity of glaciers in the Bolivian Andes is a warning indicator for mountain regions in other areas. Reduced water security is projected for the Bolivian Andes due to an expected increase in demand and a decline in the supply of water. In turn, this will have an impact on food security, power generation and livelihoods. Rock glaciers are protected under rock formations and can sometimes play an important role in long-term water storage. They should be factored into water management and climate change adaptation strategies.
This report describes research to create the first rock glacier inventory for Bolivia, and highlights the need to prioritize the preservation of areas where rock glaciers are located in the interests of water security for vulnerable populations. The inventory could also be used to protect rock glaciers from the effects of mining activity, and the report suggests that legislation should be encouraged in Bolivia to guarantee the protection of glaciers, along with the conservation and restoration of wetlands and other ecosystems crucial to water storage and supply and ultimately, to the achievement of the human right to water.
2014-12-02
Oxfam GB;
This evaluation is presented as part of the Effectiveness Review Series 2013/14, randomly selected for review under the citizen voice thematic area. This report documents the findings of a qualitative impact evaluation, carried out in April 2014. The evaluation used 'process tracing' to assess the effectiveness of the Promoting Women's Citizenship for Change from Urban Intercultural Spaces in Bolivia (Ciudadanía de las Mujeres para el Cambio desde Espacios Interculturales Urbanos en Bolivia) project.
The project, part of Oxfam GB's Raising Her Voice (RHV) portfolio, was implemented between August 2008 and March 2013 by the Instituto de Formación Femenina Integral (IFFI), a women's organisation based in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The main goal of this project was to promote gender equality in the metropolitan region of Cochabamba through a number of actions aimed at strengthening the leadership and capacity of the women and institutions who participated in the Plataforma de Mujeres por la Ciudadanía y la Equidad (the Women's Platform) and coordinating their work with other related networks at regional and national level. Ultimately, it was expected that this would lead to greater participation and influence of women from Cochabamba in several political decision-making processes.
Read more about the Oxfam Effectiveness Reviews.
2014-07-29
World Resources Institute (WRI);
This report analyzes the growing body of evidence linking community forest rights with healthier forests and lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
This report makes a strong case for strengthening the rights of indigenous and local communities over their forests as a policy tool for mitigating climate change.
2014-07-10
McKnight Foundation;
A new report about McKnight support for Andean grains research and development in Bolivia and Ecuador.
2013-02-12
Colectivo de Estudios Droges y Derechos (CEDD);
In Latin America, trafficking cocaine so it can be sold to someone who wants to use it is more serious than raping a woman or deliberately killingyour neighbor. While it may seem incredible, that is the conclusion of arigorous study of the evolution of criminal legislation in the region, which shows that countries' judicial systems mete out harsher penalties for traffickingeven modest amounts of drugs than for acts as heinous as sexua lassault or murder.
How have we reached such an unjust and irrational point? In recent decades, especially the 1980s, Latin American countries, influenced by aninternational prohibitionist model, fell -- ironically -- into what we mightmetaphorically call an addiction to punishment.
Addiction creates the need to consume more and more drugs, whichhave less and less effect; ultimately, the problematic user simply consumesdrugs to avoid withdrawal. Drug legislation in Latin America seems to have followed a similar path. Countries have an ever-growing need to add crimes and increase the penalties for drug trafficking, supposedly to control an expanding illegal market, while this increasingly punitive approach has less and less effect on decreasing the supply and use of illegal drugs.
This report explores whether the recent evolution of criminal legislation in Latin American countries with regard to drug-related conducts respects these minimal guarantees to which criminal law should be subject, and especially whether that criminal legislation can be considered proportionate to the harm caused by prohibited conducts. Ultimately, the question is whether the crimes and punishments outlined in national legislation are proportionate. If the answer is no, the conclusion should be that they may even be unconstitutional within the framework of a constitutional state.
To address this question, the report explores the recent development of criminal laws on drug-related crime in seven Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Mexico. These countries were chosen based on two basic criteria. First, they are of academic importance, because they have different drug-related problems, different geographic locations, diverse contexts and different political systems. According to traditional categorization, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia are considered producer countries; Mexico and even Brazil are considered trans-shipment countries. They also represent the different regions of Latin America,from the Southern Cone to the furthest Spanish-speaking country in North America.
This report has three main parts. The first provides a conceptual and methodological overview of the elements that form the basis of the analysis.The second describes the principal recent trends in criminal drug legislation in Latin America. The third analyzes the proportionality of drug-related crimes and punishment in the countries, comparing them with penalties for other serious crimes, followed by some conclusions.
