The National Development Plan as a Political Economic Strategy in Evo Morales’s Bolivia

Abstract

Bolivia’s National Development Plan is the most detailed official document on the objectives of Evo Morales’s administration and therefore an important reference point for the evaluation of the intentions, difficulties, and approaches of his political project. Analysis of the plan reveals bold objectives such as transforming the nation’s structure of development and making the country the energy center of the continent and more modest goals of reducing poverty and social inequality. The greatest advance in the first four years of the Morales administration is regaining state control of the economy; Bolivia has effectively changed its economic model from a predominantly free-market one to a mixed model in which state management of the basic sectors of the economy predominates. Changing the structure of development has taken second place to these changes, but the government has acted to promote the needed diversification by encouraging environmental protection, guaranteeing workers’ rights, and providing improved access to credit. The implementation of some of the plan’s main features has been delayed by political opposition from the eastern part of the country, but with a congressional majority for Morales’s party in his second term further advances can be predicted. Given the plan’s limitations and moderation and the problems in its implementation, it is significant that Bolivia has witnessed an impressive increase in the gross domestic product and a decrease in income inequality.