Ronald MacLean-Abaroa (born in La Paz, 11 March 1949 [1] [2] ) [3] is a former Bolivian politician and leading international expert in decentralization, devolution of government powers to local citizens, and anti-corruption strategies.
MacLean-Abaroa was the first democratically elected mayor of La Paz, Bolivia, and was reelected four times between 1985 and 1991 to this office.
Appointed the youngest minister at age 29, he has held five national cabinet positions including planning, foreign affairs, communications, finance, sustainable development and environment, under three different Bolivian presidents. He was Minister of Finance in 2000. [4]
In the late 1990s, he spent three years with the Harvard Institute for International Development as a senior research fellow on governance, leading research on institutional reform and governance, and working on issues of decentralization, devolution of government powers to local citizens and anti-corruption strategies. He also lectures at Harvard Kennedy School.
In March 2002, MacLean-Abaroa won his party's first-ever primary election and the nomination as the presidential candidate of the right wing Nationalist Democratic Action or A.D.N (Acción Democrática Nacionalista), the party founded by former Bolivian Dictator General Hugo Banzer). The June 2002 elections marked his first unsuccessful bid for the presidency of Bolivia. Shortly after, he joined the World Bank as a Lead Public Sector Management specialist on governance, decentralization and poverty reduction.
A founding member of Transparency International, he is on their advisory council and served as the first chairman of TI-Latin America.
MacLean-Abaroa has served as a consultant and advisor on governance and anti-corruption issues to different international organizations and governments. He chaired both the Economic and Social Council of the Andean Pact Countries (1977) and the board of directors of the Andean Development Corporation (2000).
In the private sector, he helped launch, and managed the largest gold mining company in Bolivia, and other mining ventures, before entering politics.
MacLean-Abaroa received his master's degree in public administration (1980) from Harvard Kennedy School, where he became a research fellow, and his bachelor's degree in development economics (1971) from the University of Maryland.
He is the author of several articles and books, notably Corrupt Cities: A Practical Guide to Cure and Prevention (2000), coauthored with Robert Klitgaard and Lindsey Parris, that has been published in five languages.
Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in western-central South America. It is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay to the southeast, Argentina to the south, Chile to the southwest, and Peru to the west. The seat of government is La Paz, which contains the executive, legislative, and electoral branches of government, while the constitutional capital is Sucre, the seat of the judiciary. The largest city and principal industrial center is Santa Cruz de la Sierra, located on the Llanos Orientales, a mostly flat region in the east of the country.
Eduardo Abaroa Hidalgo was Bolivia's foremost hero of the War of the Pacific (1879–1883), which pitted Chile against Bolivia and Peru. He was one of the leaders of the civilian resistance to the Chilean invasion at the Battle of Topáter.
Abaroa or Avaroa may refer to:
Robert Klitgaard is an American academic, former president of Claremont Graduate University and former dean of the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School, where he was also the Ford Distinguished Professor of International Development and Security. He currently serves as university professor at Claremont Graduate University.
Daniel Kaufmann is the president emeritus of the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), which resulted from the merger of the Revenue Watch Institute – Natural Resource Charter. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he was previously a senior fellow, and until July 2019 served in the international board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and in a number of advisory boards on governance, anti-corruption and natural resources and has also been in high-level expert commissions such as at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. Prior to that, he was a director at the World Bank Institute, leading work on governance and anti-corruption. He was also a senior manager and lead economist at the World Bank, writing and working on many countries around the world, and was a visiting scholar at Harvard University. He has also served in other boards and councils in the past, including at the World Economic Forum.
Bolivia’s government considers irrigated agriculture as a major contributor to "better quality of life, rural and national development." After a period of social unrest caused by the privatization of water supply in Cochabamba and La Paz, the government of Evo Morales is undertaking a major institutional reform in the water resources management and particularly in the irrigation sector, aimed at: (i) including indigenous and rural communities in decision making, (ii) integrating technical and traditional knowledge on water resources management and irrigation, (iii) granting and registering water rights, (iv) increasing efficiency of irrigation infrastructure, (v) enhancing water quality, and (v) promoting necessary investment and financial sustainability in the sector. Bolivia is the first country in Latin America with a ministry dedicated exclusively to integrated water resources management: the Water Ministry.
Bolivia has traditionally undertaken different water resources management approaches aimed at alleviating political and institutional instability in the water sector. The so-called water wars of 2000 and 2006 in Cochabamba and El Alto, respectively, added social unrest and conflict into the difficulties of managing water resources in Bolivia. Evo Morales’ administration is currently developing an institutional and legal framework aimed at increasing participation, especially for rural and indigenous communities, and separating the sector from previous privatization policies. In 2009, the new Environment and Water Resources Ministry was created absorbing the responsibilities previously under the Water Ministry. The Bolivian Government is in the process of creating a new Water Law – the current Water Law was created in 1906 – and increasing much needed investment on hydraulic infrastructure.
Civil service reform is a deliberate action to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, professionalism, representativity and democratic character of a civil service, with a view to promoting better delivery of public goods and services, with increased accountability. Such actions can include data gathering and analysis, organizational restructuring, improving human resource management and training, enhancing pay and benefits while assuring sustainability under overall fiscal constraints, and strengthening measures for performance management, public participation, transparency, and combating corruption.
The Cochabamba Water War, also known as the Bolivian Water War, was a series of protests that took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia's fourth largest city, between December 1999 and April 2000 in response to the privatization of the city's municipal water supply company SEMAPA. The wave of demonstrations and police violence was described as a public uprising against water prices.
Kerala is a state on the southwestern coast of India. It is known for its high literacy rate, low infant mortality rate, and long life expectancy. Kerala has also been a pioneer in the field of decentralization and participatory local democracy.
Mining in Bolivia has been a dominant feature of the Bolivian economy as well as Bolivian politics since 1557. Colonial era silver mining in Bolivia, particularly in Potosí, played a critical role in the Spanish Empire and the global economy. Tin mining supplanted silver by the twentieth century and the central element of Bolivian mining, and wealthy tin barons played an important role in national politics until they were marginalized by the industry's nationalization into the Bolivian Mining Corporation that followed the 1952 revolution. Bolivian miners played a critical part to the country's organized labor movement from the 1940s to the 1980s.
Amara M. Konneh a Liberian national with more than 25 years of experience in humanitarian, private sector, government, and international development work, is a Senior Advisor on Partnerships and Regional Integration covering Africa for the World Bank. In this role, he advises the World Bank on regional economic integration to create economic hubs for value chains and helps build strategic partnerships with Africa's regional economic commissions. Prior to that, he served as Lead Advisor for the Bank's engagements in countries affected by fragility, conflict, violence, and forced displacement with emphasis on Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, and Nigeria.
Indigenous peoples in Bolivia, or Native Bolivians, are Bolivian people who are of indigenous ancestry. They constitute anywhere from 40 to 70% of Bolivia's population of 11,306,341, depending on different estimates, and belong to 36 recognized ethnic groups. Aymara and Quechua are the largest groups. The geography of Bolivia includes the Andes, the Gran Chaco, and the Amazon Rainforest.
Jean-Paul Faguet is Professor of the Political Economy of Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science and author or editor of five books and many academic and news articles, including Is Decentralization Good for Development? Perspectives from Academics and Policy Makers, and Decentralization and Popular Democracy: Governance from Below in Bolivia, which won the Political Science Association’s W.J.M. Mackenzie award for best political science book of 2012. He has advised the governments of numerous developing countries, as well as the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations on local government reforms, poverty alleviation programs, decentralization, and the design of social investment funds. He is ranked amongst the global top five percent of economics authors according to RePEc.
Corruption in Bolivia is a major problem that has been called an accepted part of life in the country. It can be found at all levels of Bolivian society. Citizens of the country perceive the judiciary, police and public administration generally as the country's most corrupt. Corruption is also widespread among officials who are supposed to control the illegal drug trade and among those working in and with extractive industries.
The history of rail transport in Bolivia began in the 1870s after almost three decades of failed efforts to build railroads to integrate the country, mining was the driving force for the construction of railways. The need to transport saltpeter to the coast triggered the first railway lines in Bolivia. It was the silver mining, however, that drove the construction of a railway from the Pacific coast to the high plateau during the nineteenth century. Later, at the beginning of the twentieth century, tin mining gave a new impetus to railway building, forming what is now known as the Andean or Western network. The eastern network, on the other hand, developed between the years 1940 and 1960 and is financed in exchange for oil through agreements with Argentina and Brazil. Bolivia being a landlocked country, the railways played a fundamental role and the history of its railroads is the history of the country's efforts to reach first ports on the Pacific coast and then the Atlantic.
Mzukisi Qobo is Head of Wits School of Governance at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. He is also a political economist and associate professor of Strategy and International Business at the Wits Business School. In 2019, Mzukisi Qobo was appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to serve on the Economic Advisory Council. In the past, he has held a senior leadership role in government as chief director responsible for developing South Africa's trade policy at the Department of Trade and Industry.
The Ministry of Economy and Public Finance is a cabinet ministry of the government of Bolivia responsible for overseeing the nation's public finances and responsible for formulating and implementing macroeconomic policies that preserve stability and promote economic and social equity.