8 January 2015

The process of country strategy identification was rolled out by VLIR-UOS in the context of the implementation of the political agreement signed in 2010. This agreement urges VLIR-UOS to formulate a strategy for each of its 20 VLIR-UOS partner countries. Being the result of numerous inputs and consultations with a wide spectrum of actors in Flanders and the country in question, a country strategy can be considered a road map for future cooperation.
The basis of the country strategy paper is a desk study comprising a context analysis of higher education and the development plan of the country. Each country strategy process results in a country strategy paper.
It is a policy document that will be used by VLIR-UOS to guide its funding decisions. The country strategy represents the strategic niche for future VLIR-UOS cooperation in a specific country. A strategy can contain a geographical and/or thematic focus. It should be multi-disciplinary and include an optimal balance between the different programme types and levels of intervention of VLIR-UOS.
SUPPLY
NEEDS &
DEMAND
STRATEGIC NICHE
FOR PROGRAMMING
Country strategies are being elaborated in a phased manner. DR Congo, Cuba, Ecuador, Uganda, Tanzania and Vietnam were the first countries for which a country strategy was elaborated. Ethiopia and South
Africa followed in 2013, Burundi and Suriname early 2014 and Peru and Kenya in the second part of the year. Now Bolivia, Morocco and India are up for country strategy identification.
The specificity for Bolivia is that there has been a large institutional university cooperation programme
(IUC) with UMSS between 1996 and 2008 dealing mainly with water resources and biodiversity. Since then cooperation is more limited. In the last 10 years, VLIR-UOS financed (apart from the second phase of the
IUC with UMSS) 3 TEAM projects, 4 South Initiatives and 2 RIP projects in Bolivia, focussing on themes as water resources, biodiversity and social development/psychology (focussing on children in risk situation).
The first steps in the process are a desk study and the North Seminar in Brussels on 8 January 2015 to listen to the experiences of the Flemish partners concerning their interest for future cooperation with Bolivia. The opportunity was also provided to have individual interviews with the international expert Bart Delvaux who will guide the country strategy identification process together with national expert Bernardo Paz and MDF Bolivia. For VLIR-UOS, Mr. Wannes Verbeeck, Programme officer South is taking part and prof.
Paul Janssen, member of the Bureau UOS, is representing the Flemish universities and university colleges.
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A desk study is being realised in which the existing cooperation of Flemish universities and institutes for higher education with Bolivia are mapped. A Country Fact Sheet will be made available on our website.
Contacts were undertaken made with the Bolivian Embassy in Brussels and in view of the mission, consultation will also take place with the Belgian Attaché for Development Cooperation in Bolivia and with local partners in view of the preparation of the mission between 9 and 20 March 2015.
The first provisional result of the desk study is an overview of current themes/projects as compared to other donor interventions. An overview of projects and the current portfolio is also included in Annex 1.
Until today projects are being/were developed in the following main sectors:
Strategy in development - summary matrix of current projects versus National priorities, Belgian ICP
& other donors (draft version pré-seminar 8 January 2015)
THEMES SUB-THEMES VLIR-UOS
Partners
PND
BOL
BTC
BEL
IDB EU AECID
ESP
GIZ
GER
FOOD
SOVEREIGNTY
Agriculture, Bioproducts, sustainable management of natural resources
UMSA,
UMSS
ENVIRONMENT
& NATURAL
RESOURCES
Sustainable management of natural resources (water,...), biodiversity, agriculture, ..
SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT
UMSS,
UMSA
Social development, multiethnic society (estado plurinational), urban poverty and social exclusion, psychosocial health, migration
UCB x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
EDUCATION
AND
RESEARCH
CROSSCUTTING/ SUPPORT DOMAINS
Research based education,
Research and university development, Science and technology x x x x
The desk study is to be elaborated further as part of the preparation process for the Country Identification
Mission and South Seminar in Bolivia.
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On 8 January 2015 a North Seminar was organised in Brussels to listen to the Flemish partners concerning their experiences and interest in future cooperation with Bolivia. The seminar welcomed about 35 participants from Flemish universities and university colleges and representatives of DGD and other institutions, as well as the First and Second Secretaries from the Bolivian Embassy in Belgium.
This seminar was split in two parts. The aim of the first part was to outline the context of development and
Higher Education in Bolivia in general and the VLIR-UOS activities in particular, in order to provide the participants with essential information and to enable them to participate in founded discussions during the second part of the seminar.
After a Welcome addressed by VLIR-UOS director Kristien Verbrugghen (chairperson of the seminar until arrival of prof. Paul Janssen (UHasselt) and representative of the Bureau UOS), the background and objectives of the country strategy identification process were presented by P. De Lannoy (VLIR-UOS
South coordinator). Following this introductory presentation, First Secretary of the Bolivian Embassy
Alej andro Zárate gave a speech on development views and priorities and on the (related) needs for higher education in Bolivia and highlighted a number of the country’s priorities in terms of development . The
Bolivian development plan ( “Plan Nacional de Desarrollo: Bolivia Digna, Soberana, Productiva y
Democrática para Vivir Bien” (PND), 2006-2011 and updated with the “Plan de Desarrollo Económico y
Social 2012 –2015”), elaborated by the National Ministry of Development Planning, articulates several longterm development policies and programmes that are interesting references for development and higher education cooperation, including a focus on the link between research and development. Important topics which can be interesting areas for development and higher education cooperation include natural resources, the transformation of primary resources, food security, industrialisation, technology development and research strengthening. The plan also focuses on recovery of indigenous knowledge and diversity, as guaranteed by the new Constitution and expressed in the new denomination of the country: “Plurinational
State of Bolivia”. The aim is ending colonisation and patriarchy to guarantee freedom, freedom to be understood as less poor and more educated citizens. The aim is to organise by 2025 (200 years of Independence) a series of Public Consultations to draw an actions calendar in function of development goals, such as access to basic services, multicultural and plurilanguage education. In the national plan documents the intention is made clear to provide broader attention to higher education and scientific quality, but no movements are on-going towards reforms of the educational sector as compared to Ecuador and Peru.
Bolivia has 15 public universities (financed by the central government but which function autonomously), 3 indigenous universities ( El Alto, Chimoré, Chaco) and about 40 private universities. At higher education level there are also technical institutes (Industry, Natural resources, Trade and Services) and 27 teacher training schools. The higher education offer consists of about 600 programs all over the country. Due to the nationalisation policy regarding natural resources (oil and gas), a lot more financial resources became available for public investments. For instance, the HE budget was multiplied by five over the last years.
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Guido Schueremans from DGD and focal point for Bolivia provided an introduction on the current state of the Indicative Bilateral Cooperation Programme between Belgium and Bolivia. The penultimate joint commission took place in 2006 and resulted in a 40M€ programme focussing on health (health care networking and budget support for activities related to malnutrition) and rural development (through activities in community irrigation a.o.). There is also an out-phasing support from previous ICP agreements for the Defensoría del Pueblo. The last joint commission took place in 2014 and resulted in a transition programme (2015 –
2016) of 18 M€, including budget support for water management (10M€), capacity building (for example short term scholarships for local actors) and interculturalism (2M€). The next Belgian-Bolivian cooperation programme will need to look more at integrated approaches involving all actors on the field. In this context a joint contextual analysis will be elaborated by Belgian indirect actors. The idea is to have a larger input of indirect cooperation actors in order to come up with a solid, synergetic proposal taking into account the new
MIC approach from DGD. University cooperation can play a very important role in the cooperation with middle income countries and that university partners need to be at the table as well when elaborating the next bilateral cooperation programme. The modalities for providing further synergy between bilateral and indirect cooperation actors need to be strengthened so that good intentions can hopefully also find a result in joint projects. Indeed DGD is appreciative of the way VLIR-UOS is formulating its country strategies, taking into account a solid contextual analysis and wide consultation process with stakeholders South and
North.
Katrien Degrauwe from DGD elaborated on the domains of other Belgian indirect actors who are working in
Bolivia. In total, 20 Belgian indirect actors are active in Bolivia (a.o. Broederlijk Delen, SOSfaim, ViaDB,
FOS, APEFE and ARES-CCD), which makes Bolivia the 3 rd most important partner country for the indirect cooperation after DRC and Burundi. Most important sectors are rural development, education and labour.
Prof. G. Loots (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Flemish promoter of the OI ‘Strenghtening (PhD) training and research in the field of families, children and adolescents ’ in cooperation with the UCB universities of La
Paz and Santa Cruz gave an introduction on the genesis and the activities of the project and the INDS research group (interpersonal, discursive and narrative studies) and the interuniversity Centre for children in Vulnerable situations active in different countries. Since 1998, Prof. Loots works on the situation of children at risk (socio-economic and other vulnerabilities) in Bolivia. Over the last 10 years, more than 100
VUB MSc.-students (psychology and pedagogy) went to Bolivia for the field work of their MSc. dissertation.
In the OI project, several joint PhDs were developed, master classes were organised, a doctoral school for psychology was established at UCB (the only one in Bolivia) and a research network on families and youth at social risk (involving universities, NGO’s, local government etc.) was put in place and strengthened. In this way, embedded research could be guaranteed. Prof. Loots realised that involving all stakeholders
(PCM context analysis and problem based solutions) was one of the most important lessons learned through the VLIR-UOS project. This project was also complemented in a synergetic way with the VLADOC scholarship of Isabel Berckmans who did research on the situation of young people at risk in the streets of
El Alto. Based on fieldwork it was concluded that programmes offering multiple and holistic services had a greater and more sustainable impact and that involvement of families is important. The approach to research implemented emphasizes the importance of actors taking part in the actual research (participatory action research).
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UCB now created an Interdisciplinary research platform for integrative community development to enhance quality of life of disadvantaged communities. This platform involves 16 research centres and 4 UCB universities. 4 clusters are identified as being important for the country: human development, inclusive economic development, environment& climate change, democratic governance and conflict management in multicultural settings. They will focus on participatory research on food security, renewable energy, infrastructure, climate change, physical and mental health and wellbeing, inclusive economy.
Subsequently, prof. D. Raes (KU Leuven, co-promoter of TEAM-project ran by prof. Willems (KU Leuven)) gave an introduction to the results of the TEAM project: ‘Master in Irrigation Engineering’ and the preceding
TEAM-project ‘Quinagua’ (during which more than 40 local MSc.-students were trained). He elaborated on the situation of water resources (climate, rivers, ..) and impact on agriculture and the livelihoods of local people. The bottleneck is the amount of water which is very limited in the altiplano and makes it difficult to increase agricultural production (f.e. quinoa). The on-going project focuses on irrigation and is based on the
Bolivian demand of increasing the productive infrastructure (strengthening roads and irrigation structures).
The Master Programme in Irrigation Engineering at UMSA is the only one in Bolivia. Although this MSc.programme is newly elaborated and completely contextualised, there are links with the IUPWare International Course Programme developed at KU Leuven and Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
During the last presentation before the discussions, W. Verbeeck (programme officer South and desk officer for the Bolivia CSI) presented the approach for the group discussions and the current and former focus of activities of Flemish university (colleges) cooperation in Bolivia. The on-going projects and the former IUC programme with Universidad Mayor de San Simon (UMSS) were presented, as well as the
Bolivian development priorities (PND) and the principal areas of intervention of the main international donors active in Bolivia.
The group discussions were roughly organised around 4 topics: the generic needs for HE cooperation with Bolivia (why do we want to work in Bolivia?), what do we want to do in the future? (thematic areas and transversal support domains); with who do we want to work? (partners, synergy and complementarity on different levels); and how do we want to work (cooperation modalities). After the discussions in 2 groups, the outcome was plenary presented and discussed.
Group discussion 1 (main conference room):
The group 2 discussion started with retrospective of the previous VLIR-UOS projects in Bolivia, especially the IUC programme with UMSS. Because this IUC programme was a first generation IUC, there were still things to learn. The programme was more a hotchpotch of individual projects and it lacked an overarching central theme and the institutional dimension was limited. Also local ownership has been an issue. Past project experiences also learned that Bolivian academics have little incentives to do research, as most professors get paid for the amount they teach, not for the research they do. In recent years, the Bolivian government increased the HE budget, also to support more research, but there seem to be no clear and focused mechanisms in place yet to support research.
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1. Generic needs for HE cooperation with Bolivia (why?)
There is a need for PhD support, especially because bilateral cooperation dropped this topic and doesn’t provide PhD scholarships anymore. PhD support and PhD scholarships can be incorporated in south projects, but also VLADOC can play a role to improve the level of local students.
2. Thematic areas (what?)
The participants agreed on the 3 thematic areas proposed (food sovereignty, environment & natural resources and social development). Also for the Bolivian Embassy, these topics are important, with a special focus on food sovereignty and family agriculture. For each of the 3 main topics, several sub-themes have been suggested:
- Food sovereignty: family agriculture
- Environment & natural resources: water, irrigation, climate change, pollution
- Social development: social insecurity and safety, indigenous rights, multiculturalism
Health care is also an important topic which hasn’t been defined as thematic area as such, but can partly come under food sovereignty (malnutrition etc.) and social development (access to health care etc.). It has been suggested to ‘upgrade’ ICT from a transversal theme to a thematic area (including research on software development etc.). However, ICT is less of a concern for the Bolivian government, and also to participants with project experience in Bolivia don’t think that ICT is an important topic to work on (even as a separate transversal theme), because the ICT situation in general is ok.
Research support came out of the discussion as single most important transversal theme, including subthemes such as PhD training, language training (scientific English), data management (keeping track of data is sometimes a problem), ICT support and intellectual property rights.
3. Partner institutions (with who?)
VLIR-UOS projects so far have been limited to cooperation with UMSS, UMSA and UCB. It the future, cooperation with other institutions can be envisaged, but so far, the Flemish universities don’t have a lot of experience with cooperation with other institutions apart from the 3 institutions listed above. It is striking, however, that so far there has been no cooperation with institutions from Santa Cruz (being the biggest city in Bolivia together with La Paz). Hence it would be interesting to identify new partners in Santa Cruz (or elsewhere) during the mission. Anyway, given the fact that the number of public universities in Bolivia is rather limited (15), there is no need to exclude one of these institutions from a possible partner list. Bolivia is a relatively important destination for VLIR-UOS travel grant students (REI), also for students from Flemish university colleges, who mostly go to local schools or hospitals for their internships or thesis research.
However, there seem to be no structural cooperation between Flemish university colleges and one of these
Bolivian institutes. Nevertheless, NGO’s and national research institutes can also be important partners.
Moreover, FAO will establish an international research centre on quinoa in Bolivia. This new institute could be an interesting (third) partner as well.
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4. Cooperation modalities (how?)
Existing portfolio can be pursued. Networking is important and interesting, hence the network (and platform) modalities is something that can be looked into. Networks could be facilitated on national or regional level (f.e. Andean community, link with Peru and Ecuador).
Given the fact that the Bolivian government increased the budget for HE, but seem to lack good fundable projects, it could be worthwhile to invite the government to co-finance VLIR-UOS projects in Bolivia, hereby increasing local ownership and support.
Group discussion 2 (room E Franqui):
For VUB, Bolivia is an important partner country. Also other Flemish universities w hich aren’t very active in
Bolivia yet, are interested in new cooperation (f.e. UHasselt).
In Bolivia, there is a growing technological development and a movement of decentralization. There are no reforms in HE yet, just a generic intention from the government to move forward with enhancing of scientific quality.
1. Generic needs for HE cooperation with Bolivia (why?)
Access to education can be improved. There is a lot of interest for PhD and MSc training in Bolivia. Attention for research based education on MSc. and PhD level is crucial. Bolivian PhD schools could need support. Academic English is an important issue in order to enhance scientific content. It is also important to support evidence based, contextualised and participative research, including local communities and other stakeholders involved. Also quality assurance, education policy, the development of funding capacities for universities / research departments and regional contacts and cooperation (with a.o. Peru, Ecuador,…) could need further support.
2. Thematic areas (what?)
The participants agreed on general formulation of the 3 thematic areas proposed, for which several subthemes have been suggested:
- Food sovereignty: food security, rural development, health related to nutrition
- Environment & natural resources: ecology, water (pollution and quality), (aquatic) biodiversity, conservation, climate change, mineral resources (lithium etc.), importance of (sustainable management of) natural resources & link with food security, but also with health (mining) and ecology
- Social development: society and psychosocial health, link with governance and indigenous rights, cultural identity, migration linked with socio-economic challenges, urban versus rural communities, poverty, violence, health related to social development (HIV etc.)
The 3 themes could be combined in an integrated approach linking natural resources with social development matters (vivir bien).
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3. Partner institutions (with who?)
VLIR-UOS projects so far have been limited to cooperation with UMSS, UMSA and UCB. UCB (being a cluster of 4 universities) is an important partner (especially for the Vrije Universiteit Brussel). Recently, indigenous universities have been created. These universities are free, but the quality of education still needs to be developed. They have to start from scratch and could be taken up in the partner list (maybe as second partner in a kind of ‘twinning’ projects).
A selection of strategic regions within the country strategy doesn’t seem to be relevant, but can be investigated during the mission.
4. Cooperation modalities (how?)
Existing modalities can be continued. The UCB network (as presented by prof. Loots) can be an interesting partner structure. Indigenous universities could be strengthened through the main partner universities
(through involvement as a second partner), and maybe through south initiatives.
The modalities of Networks and Platforms could be further investigated, also taking into account earlier experiences of VLIR-UOS with these in Ecuador, Vietnam, Cuba and in Uganda. The platform around the
TIPNIS actions could be supported as a research developing platform. It might be interesting as well to look into opportunities for the co-funding of activities. The Bolivian state says they have something to offer.
In general the broad themes for cooperation are very much in line with the country’s priorities and with the Belgian-Bolivian bilateral cooperation. However, it would be important to limit the number of (sub) themes and make sure there is an integrated, multidisciplinary approach starting from the central theme of
‘vivir bien’ and linking up for instance biodiversity, food sovereignty with natural resources management
(mainly water and effects of climate change and health) and societal problems (children at risk, related health, community development, decentralisation) and also taking into account economic development
(technology for productive sectors, software for technology) and not address all of these as separate development problems.
In view of the recommendation to link up with national priorities, the contacts with the Bolivian Embassy, national authorities in the domain of planning, development and science should form an entry point for further prioritisation during the identification mission.
It is also obvious that a number of issues are crosscutting and instrumental for all activities in Bolivia:
 ‘enhancing of research quality’ as a ‘crosscutting’ theme to be addressed possibly through a more national approach/project whereby the link is made with research policy and practices (research based education, scientific writing, academic English). Also teacher training was mentioned but there it needs to be investigated how university cooperation can have a considerable
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impact in absence of VVOB (compared to the situation in Ecuador and Suriname were VVOB is present);

Importance of regional embedding. Possibilities of cooperation over the borders, in particular with the other Andean countries (themes as water, effects of mining, ecology, social psychology and development (cfr Peru cooperation with PUCP) could be crosscutting topics resorting under the general cooperation themes linked with government and society).
From the above, mainly the enhancing of research quality through attention for research based education has the potential to develop into a project approach (and could link up with initiatives in Ecuador and Peru).
Current partner universities are Universidad Mayor de San Simon (UMSS), Universidad Mayor de San
Andres (UMSA) and Universidad Católica de Bolivia San Pablo (UCB) (cluster of 4 universities and several extension centres). ARES-CCD focuses on cooperation with Universidad Mayor de San Simon (UMSS) and continued an Institutional University Cooperation after the ending of the VLIR-programme in 2008. In terms of future partner universities, further investigation is needed, but since the field is not so wide, a possible focus could be on public universities (15) + a restricted number of private universities (or universities with an intermediate status). However, this is to be investigated and discussed with local stakeholders.
In terms of VLIR-UOS intervention types, it is obvious the cooperation with UCB is still continuing and has potential to develop into other cooperation modalities. They are already working in a network/platform constellation. There should be potential for TEAM and South Initiatives around strategic themes and guidance of the new indigenous universities (more focus on professionalization) could be envisaged through twinning modality or through smaller, more accessible south initiatives in which also institutes for higher education in Flanders could play a role in particular in areas of teacher training and more practical approaches.
Maybe some national-level projects could arise around crosscutting themes (research quality) and in the future network style projects (post IUC or research platforms) or regional cooperation projects (Andes, Latin
America) are not to be excluded.
Also, a great number of Flemish travel grant students have Bolivia as a destination and there are opportunities to strengthen Bolivia as a country in our North programmes as for the moment the numbers of Bolivian students in KOI, ITP and ICP are limited.
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The North seminar provided input as to the preparation of the country strategy identification mission. The following themes are confirmed, but reorganised in view of fitting with the general VLIR-UOS approach:
Strategy in development - summary matrix of current strategic opportunities from the North versus
National priorities, Belgian ICP & other donors (draft version to be discussed further at level of the
Bureau UOS of 23 January 2015 and in view of preparing the identification mission of March 2015)
THEMES SUB-THEMES PND BTC IDB EU AECID GIZ
FOOD
SOVEREIGNTY
(family) agriculture, nutrition, link with environment and climate change
BOL x
BEL x
ESP x
GER x x x x x x ENVIRONMENT
& NATURAL
RESOURCES
(WATER)
Sustainable management of natural resources (water resources, use of land for production, pollution from mining and effects on health), biodiversity, ecology, impact of climate change x
SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT society and psychosocial health, social insecurity and safety, indigenous rights, multiculturalism, urbanisation, migration, link with governance and indigenous rights, cultural identity, health related to social development x x x x x
CROSSCUTTING/ SUPPORT DOMAINS
RESEARCH
SUPPORT
PhD training, language training
(academic English), scientific writing, statistics, data management, ICT support and intellectual property rights x x x x
The detailed content of the In the framework of the IUC project in UMSS (Cochabamba), two masters were organised but discontinued, probably due to a lack of organisational capacity. A research centre was created (CEMAR), but was not able to establish itself solidly. Too many time was dedicated to look for some orientation for specific research themes. Some PhD were formed, and continue to work as researchers.
The different interventions in the framework of the IUC project were weakly integrated, due to a lack of overall planning and monitoring.
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The expertise gathered during the UCB project was translated into the creation of a research platform. This was an important spin-off. The psychology department (were the project was implemented) is rather well organised and an interesting partner for cooperation. UCB could be in an interesting and performing partner for VLIR-interventions on all levels (IUC, TEAM,…). For the kind of research VLIR-UOS is funding at UCB, it would be difficult to find other funding (FWO,…), due to the specific thematic focus (social development). The sandwich formula for PhDs is excellent, specifically if the research domain is in the
‘home country’.
The main conclusions:
Developing a country strategy can offer a framework for interventions, in order to allow the different interventions to contribute to a main (development and/or academic) goal. It can help to decide to orientate decisions for interventions, but it should also be broad enough in order not to limit interesting interventions.
Integration of the project in the academic activities of the partner university is very important. Also the support for formulation and accompaniment (e.g. PCM) is fundamental for the successful implementation of a project. PCM is a good tool for support.
Persons to contact during the field mission: UMSS: Jenifer Cahill (UMSS), Rector UCB
More input from consultation rounds will be added. People who would still be interested to share their views can contact international expert Bart Delvaux through mail bartdelvaux@mdf-la.org
before March 2015.
A country strategy status summary will be prepared and discussed at level of the Bureau UOS in draft version on 23 January 2014 preparing for the mission which will take place during the second and third week of March 2015 (9 - 20 March 2015). This document will be based on the conclusions from the desk study, North seminar and consultation rounds.
In April 2015 the Country Strategy Identification report will be drafted and discussed at level of the Bureau
UOS, based on which a draft country strategy will be elaborated in May 2015 for consultation with the
Flemish university associations for eventual comments and feedback by the end of the month.
1. Overview Bolivia Interventions
2. Project matrix versus Bolivian priorities (pre-seminar, so only based on current projects)
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