An Important New Resource on Bolivia and Gas

As Bolivia watchers know well, and to borrow from a famous phrase from US politics – It’s about gas and oil, stupid. Bolivia’s political turmoil the past three years has been very much about the nation’s huge reserves of gas and oil and about the popular demand that the benefits of those reserves be used to benefit all of Bolivia’s people. Two presidents have fallen over that issue and a new one elected over it as well.

One of the most important questions in Bolivia’s great “gas debate” is this one: How have the various privatization policies the past decade affected how much the Bolivian treasury collects from oil and gas development? It is the answer to this question that determines whether revenue from oil and gas is being used to finance schools, health care and development, or just making a handful of foreign oil corporations much better off. Answering this question is also essential to developing a new gas policy that does benefit the Bolivian people.

It is not, however, an easy question to research and answer.

Last year, two key Bolivian research organizations – CESU (the research arm of the University of San Simon in Cochabamba) and CEDLA (a research NGO in La Paz) – began an in-depth research effort to look at the role of gas and oil in Bolivia’s public finances. Their work is one of a network of similar efforts supported by a group The Democracy Center collaborates with closely – The International Budget Project.

This week, the CESU half of that project launched a new Web site, Ojo Enerjetico, in which they will make their research work available. If you are watching the gas debate, keep an eye on Ojo Enerjetico. The site is in Spanish.

If you are interested in more information about The Democracy Center’s work with citizens and budgets, including our report on budgets and oil and gas, have a look here.