Community participation in Bolivia : the DANIDA / UNCHS Training Programme

This publication traces the seven year development of a DANIDA and UNCHS (Habitat) funded project into an autonomous Bolivian Institution: the Pro-Habitat Foundation, whose goal is to train for and facilitate community participation as an in element in the planning and execution of human settlement projects. The document outlines the three phases of development from project to autonomous institution. It focuses in phase one (1986-7) on the training of local individuals to promote participation, especially women, in human settlement projects. The description of phase two (1988-92) highlights the changing organizational structure to include staff from the Ministry of Urban Affairs, from other government departments and professionals and technicians from private companies, and representatives from the community level. It also addresses the expansion of the training programme including the design and production of didactic materials, such as booklets and videoas and the marketing of these materials and of the project's training skills to gain financial autonomy. By the end of phase two, the Ministry of Urban Affairs was no longer seen as the best setting for widening the project's scope of action, so a foundation, The Pro-Habitat Foundation (the third phase-1993), was formed with the aims of self-sustainability and institutional autonomy, being owned and run by founder staff members. The Foundation offers specialized training services to human settlement programmes concentrating on shelter and environment, urban development, and water and sanitation. The publication summarizes some of the lessons learned in the process of evolution; namely, that the starting point for training should be the local context of the country, that objectives should evolve over time as experience is gained, that the community must be involved in each step of the process, that sustainable shelter requires that grassroots organizations demand and receive what is most useful to them, that women's empowerment can help to support community development, and that the main goal is to promote the assignation of institutional resources for training in community participation.