SID has been providing technical assistance to NGOs working in the Altiplano and the Inter-Andean Valleys. SID helps the NGOs analyze more effective methods for reclaiming land and increasing income, re-plan their projects to take advantage of these methods, improve their monitoring and evaluation systems, implement the new projects, evaluate their results, and improve them once again. The NGOs provide services to nearly 20,000 farm families in 684 communities.
The funding for NGOs and the services they provide is limited. For example, there are approximately 6,500 rural communities on the Bolivian Altiplano, and NGOs provide services in approximately 2,000 of them on a regular basis. Poor farmers are not waiting until an NGO can find funding to serve them. Many are forming their own associations and carrying out their own projects. Six of the 32 NGOs in Bolivia are actually associations of farming communities that are carrying out their own development projects.
