Yungas Community Alternative Development Fund (YCADF)
In September 2001, with Save the Children Bolivia as a subgrantee, ACDI/VOCA was awarded funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID/ Bolivia) to implement the Yungas Community Alternative Development Fund (YCADF). To date, the total award is $19,301,099 for the four-year life of the project, of which $12,303,264 is designated for small-grant projects.
The project seeks to improve the standard of living at the village level through the construction/repair of small bridges, farm-to-market roads, clinics, schools, crop storage facilities, small processing machinery, wells, and other related investments, with the overall aim of increasing the productive potential of those residing in the North Yungas, South Yungas, and Caranavi provinces in the Department of La Paz, Bolivia. This activity is part of a greater bi-national effort aimed at containing and eliminating illicit and excess coca production and is being implemented in cooperation with the Government of Bolivia (Vice Ministry of Alternative Development) and the United States Agency for International development (USAID).
During an initial nine-month pilot project in the Yungas region, ACDI/VOCA funded more than 50 community development activities that resulted in improved roads, new bridges, refurbished schools and a variety of other locally chosen and managed activities. The success of the pilot program paved the way for the much larger, longer-term effort now known as the Yungas Community Alternative Development Fund (YCADF).
YCADF Goals and Objectives
The poorest country in South America, Bolivia is fighting deep-seated poverty and a menacing drug production trade. Designed to complement the U.S. Mission's overall objective to eliminate illicit coca production, YCADF project goals are to reduce cultivation of coca and to provide alternative economic development opportunities by improvements to infrastructure, health, and education and to involve more people in the legitimate economy. In addition to providing matching self-help community grants, the project also incorporates technical assistance and local capacity-building activities.
With the overall objective of supporting the Government of Bolivia and USAID/Bolivia's goal of eliminating illegal and excess coca from Bolivia, the project provides residents of the Yungas region with increased or improved social and productive infrastructure. Social infrastructure projects (60% of the fund) include such efforts as installing potable water, sewerage and drainage systems, the construction of schools, community centers, town squares and main markets, road construction, and other projects as identified by the communities of the Yungas as necessary for improving their standard of living. Productive infrastructure projects (40% of the fund) include such endeavors as improving the quality and quality of honey production, increasing achiote production and associated marketing strategies, building post-harvest coffee processing plants, providing solar cacao dryers, brush cutters, and education and training in the areas of dairy cattle management and sheep and chicken production.
