This OpenDemocracy article discusses Bolivia’s “highly heterogeneous, politicized society,” its dependence on exports, limitations in the diversity of its economy, the failure of Morales to transform “ the ‘development model” and implications for the current crisis.
“Social policies were made possible precisely by deepening extraction….In 2010, Bolivia organized the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change, which elaborated far-reaching and agenda-setting declarations on climate change. Actual policies, however, contradicted the declared socio-ecological transformation.
The National Development Plan 2025 (NDP 25), published in 2015, declared Bolivia a regional ‘energy power’, based primarily on fossil fuels and large hydropower dams. Vicepresident García Linera declared:
“The twenty-first century for Bolivia is to produce oil, industrialise petrochemicals, industrialise minerals… We’re seeking out the areas where there’s more gas, where there’s water, sites for dams. Where there is water, it’s like pure gold falling from the sky.”
The plan further contradicted the buen-vivir agenda, potentials for an energy transition, and largely ignored the ecologically negative effects of large-scale hydropower projects. Renewables only make up 2 % of Bolivia’s energy production.”