UN Praises Bolivia’s Economic Model

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has celebrated Bolivia’s economic model and said that the country must maintain the ‘gains’ of the last 13 years under leftist president Evo Morales.

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Luciana Mermet, UNDP representative, spoke at a conference on Wednesday with Bolivian Vice-president Alvaro Garcia Linera. At the meeting, Mermet said, “What are some of the challenges?... First is to do with maintaining and guaranteeing the gains and results of the (of the plurinational state) because this is central for the continuity and sustainability of public policy”. She also added that Bolivia has entered a new phase of development, marked by “social equality, general welfare, social justice and the redistribution of wealth and services, this must be guaranteed and I don’t think this is negotiable.” 

Another UN representative, Pablo Bohoslavsky also visited on Bolivia on Wednesday and celebrated the country’s economic growth, saying, “Bolivia’s ‘economic social communitarian productive model’ has been remarkably successful from an economic perspective. The country has been transformed from a heavily indebted developing country to one of the fastest-growing economies in the region,”

Evo Morales has long argued that this is due to the country’s nationalization of natural resources and strategic industries. The think tank CELAG published a report on the 1st of May backing this up, it that showed Bolivia would have lost out on $74 billion in state revenue were in not for the sweeping nationalizations introduced by the leftist government.