IDEA: Democracy, gender and youth

The main results achieved in each one of the four components under the present contribution can be summarized as  follows: First component: public finance management at regional levels. Depending on the regional context of the five chosen regions, different degrees of results were achieved:  - In La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba regional development agendas based on metropolitan areas were initiated in the three main cities of the country. - in all cases, important technical assistance was provided to different regions. For example, i) how to improve and manage public investment resources (Santa Cruz), ii)how to strengthen regional planning including electronic government at local level and institutional strengthening to protect national parks (Beni), iii) the formulation of a new development plan for the Tarija region and iv) the formulation of an environmental agenda for Cochabamba.   While, the technical assistance provided was well received by local governments even during the 2020 transition government, it should be said that after the 2021 sub-national elections, it is quite likely that many of these initiatives may be delayed in its implementation -if not discontinued at all- by the new elected regional authorities. It is a shame that the contribution ended precisely when such change of authorities was in place.  Second component: Improving gender equality participation. The so called proposal "parity is now" was launched by IDEA to promote women's political participation at all levels, in order to comply and preserve the characteristics of political parity and alternation among elected women and men, while also preventing political violence against women. Under this component, several women's organizations from the nine Bolivian regions were involved and received technical assistance in order to learn and to exert an effective exercise of their political rights.  As a sound result of this component, within the electoral lists of candidates to the 2019 and 2020 national elections, all political parties running in those elections complied with what it is prescribed in the electoral law in terms of parity. After the 2020 national elections, there are 20 female members in the senate (55,5% of the total) and 61 female members in the lower chamber (46,9% of the total).   As to the female presence leading the recently elected municipal governments, it is important to mention that two capital cities will be led by female leaders during the 5 coming years: the cities of Cobija (Pando) and El Alto in La Paz.  As to regional assemblies, the women's participation after the march 2021 sub-national elections has determined that 48 percent of women (out of 247 positions), were elected as "asambleistas" in the nine regional governments of the country. In previous years female participation was very reduced at this level. However, the country does not have any female governor yet but it has a female sub-governor in Pando. Third component: Deeper political participation of the youth. Under this component, youngsters from the five chosen regions were given enough space to deliberate, interact and propose a called agenda of public policies (Agenda from the Youth) to be prioritized by regional governments. Also a virtual platform from and for the Youth has been designed and launched to strengthen their political participation and social control, especially after the irruption of the pandemic in the country. Also the active technical assistance provided by IDEA determined that during the two national elections 200 young participants under this initiative, representing to the most representative political parties, decided to run as candidates for different positions. As a result, 27 of them were elected and they are now members of the Bolivian Parliament for the 2021-2025 legislation.   Fourth component: Contributing to improve the institutional capacity of the National Electoral Body. In the beginning of the contribution in 2018, it was agreed that the achievement of an electoral ISO (International Organization for Standarization) provided by the Organization of American States (OAS), as the only institution authorized to certify electoral processes around the world, was to be executed in Bolivia. Sweden, Spain and the European Union agreed to finance such certification. Unfortunately, the process to deliver the final results by OAS took more time than originally planned and it would have been used as a political tool, especially to benefit the Government, in the 2019 national elections that took place in October 2019. In the end, the final ISO certification was suspended. Some weeks later, such decision was proven to be an adequate one in view of the fraudulent results provided by the Bolivian Electoral Body which were confirmed after a quick electoral audit conducted by the same OAS itself.    In the end, while the official ISO was not given to the Bolivian Electoral Body, technical assistance was provided to the sampled regional electoral offices for this purpose but, in the end, the official certification from OAS was not delivered. 

The objective of the intervention was to contribute to the strengthening of the Bolivian democracy by promoting an integral participation of the youth and women in political parties while also providing technical assistance to the National Electoral Body. The five target regions under this initiative were La Paz, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Tarija and Beni. The four components of the contribution, as developed and implemented by IDEA International, in the 5 mentioned Bolivian regions, were: i) the strengthening of some municipal/regional management issues, ii) the consolidation of a deeper gender equality participation, iii) the promotion of a more active and deep political participation of the youth, and iv) the improvement of the quality of electoral services delivered by the Bolivian Electoral Body.