ORU turns the spotlight on Rural Development in Bolivia's LED Forum
The regional meeting for Latin America and the Caribbean was held from the 27th to the 30th of June as preparatory meeting for the 4th World Forum of Local Economic Development in Cape Verde
The 2nd Regional Forum of Local Economic Development for Latin America and the Caribbean finished on Friday the 30th of June in Tiquipaya (Cochabamba, Bolivia), after four days of debate on LED in the subnational governments and with close to 200 participants and 225 speakers. As coorganiser of the event, ORU Fogar participated actively, managing to turn the spotlight on the issue of Rural Development.
The Secretary General of the Organisation, Carles Llorens, began his speech at the opening ceremony urging Bolivia to continue to be a point of reference in the Latin American decentralisation processes. After that, he put on the table an issue that in his opinion has been left behind in the global agenda: rural exodus. “The rural world is still unable to retain its population, which continues to migrate towards cities, where poverty, insecurity and marginalisation are intensifying”, Llorens explained, and added that “for that reason, ORU Fogar wants to take up the issue of Rural Development in Cochabamba and in Cape Verde”.
Thus, it organised on Thursday 29th the workshop entitled "Migration between rural and urban spaces: rupture or new cohesion spaces and diplomaties for an integrated and balanced development". The session benefited from the speeches of Ney Barrionuevo, main researcher at RIMISP; Renata Lasso, representative of CONGOPE (Ecuador); Ronald Andrés, Major Captain of Charagua (Bolivia); Carlos Alesandri, Secretary for Regiona Integration and RRII of Córdoba (Argentina) and Filemón Iriarte, Secretary for Planning of Cochabamba (Bolivia), who shared the experiences of their territories and discussed the way of reducing rural exodus and overcoming the rural-urban division.
Besides, some of its members represented ORU in different panels, like María Cecília Alvarado, Vice-Prefect of Azuay, Jorge Guamán, Prefect of Cotopaxi (Ecuador) and Iván Canelas, governor of Cochabamba, who dealt with issues like territorial competitiveness, plural economy and indigenous autonomy. Back to back with the Forum, ORU organised the first work meeting of the RIS3-AL Program –of the 2030 Agenda Work Group– with the beneficiary regions, and held a meeting with its Latin American member regions and networks. From this meeting arouse the proposal of creating an ORU Fogar's Secretariat in Latin America.
Next Stop: Cape Verde
ORU insisted in the importance of Rural Development at the Forum's closure, represented by Carlos Alesandri, who declared that “urban and rural development must go hand in hand, within a framework of territorial development, and the issue of rural exodus must be present in the global agenda". The event finished with a Final Declaration that, made of 13 resolutions, defends the need of a new decentralised, horizontal, comprehensive and intercultural public management. The text will be presented at the 4th edition of Cape Verde's World LED Forum, which will be held from the 17th to the 20th October in Praia. Inscriptions are already open and can be formalised at the Forum's website.
