The Municipal Round Tables
Before the round tables took place, the municipalities received a ques-
tionnaire. In this questionnaire four topics were handled: identification of the
poor and how to address their poverty, identification of institutions which
should handle HIPC resources and criteria for allocation, identification of
institutional mechanisms to control and evaluate the use of resources and
type of civil society involved in it, desirability of institutionalization of the
Dialogue 2 and ways to implement it.
The round tables were held over two days in each of the capitals of
the nine departments in Bolivia. The following people were to represent the
municipality: the Mayor (representing the local government), the Vice-Presi-
dent from the Municipal Council (representing the local opposition), the
President of the Vigilance Committee (VC) (representing civil society) and a
female member of the VC (representing women). On some occasions repre-
sentatives of Jubilee 2000 (Church), the National Consultation (Comité de
Enlace) and other CSOs were given permission to observe the round tables.
All municipalities concurred in that they all wanted to implement the strat-
egy themselves, seven out of nine tables wanted resources to be allocated on
the basis of poverty indicators, six out of nine tables wanted a national and
departmental institution to control and evaluate the use of resources (with
the Church participating in both), all agreed that the dialogue should be
carried out periodically. Each municipal round table elected representatives
from amongst those attending, to go on to the departmental round tables. Of
the 130 elected, 65 were from government, 65 from civil society (Vigilance
Committees).
The Departmental Tables
The departmental tables, taking each two days, were open to a wider
range of participants. Not only the representatives of the municipal round
tables participated, but also representatives coming from Jubilee 2000, the
National Consultation, labor unions, federations, NGOs, universities, nation-
al and departmental CSOs, representatives of the Departmental Councils,
the Central Government, Congress and Prefectural representatives. While
Jubilee 2000 and the National Consultation presented their own results, the
departmental tables reached a near consensus8 about the need to install an
institution to control, monitor and evaluate the use of the resources, and a
full consensus that the Church should play an important role in such a moni-
toring mechanism and that the Dialogue should be institutionalized. The
departmental tables appointed representatives to go to the national table.
8 Only one department did not
agree with the idea that the use
of the resources should be moni-
tored and evaluated by a separate
institution at the national and
departmental level.
The National Table
The national table (August 28 - September 2, 2000) was divided into
two segments. The first half was dedicated to the outcome of the social agen-
da, the second half to the economic agenda. The concrete results regarding
10 • IDPM-UA Discussion Paper 2002-05