| Missions of the Bolivarian Revolution |
| — food — housing — medicine — |
| Barrio Adentro · Plan Bolivar 2000 Hábitat · Mercal |
|---|
| — education — |
| Ribas · Sucre Robinson I · Robinson II |
| — indigenous rights — land — environment — |
| Guaicaipuro · Identidad Miranda · Piar Vuelta al Campo · Vuelvan Caras Zamora |
| — (Hugo Chávez) — (Venezuela) — |
| Venezuela |
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The Bolivarian Missions are a series of social justice, social welfare, anti-poverty, educational, electoral and military recruiting programs implemented under the administration of the current Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. They draw their name from the historical South American hero, Simón Bolívar.
Contents |
Bolivarian Missions
The "Bolivarian Missions" have entailed the launching of government anti-poverty initiatives,[1] the construction of thousands of free medical clinics for the poor,[2] the institution of educational campaigns that have reportedly made more than one million adult Venezuelans literate,[3] and the enactment of food[4] and housing subsidies.[5] The infant mortality rate fell by 18.2% between 1998 and 2006.[6][7] The government earmarked 44.6% of the 2007 budget for social investment, with 1999-2007 averaging 12.8% of GDP.[8] The Gini coefficient has fallen from 48.7 in 1998 to 42 in 2007 (claims that the Gini has risen were based on data from two different (non-comparable) statistical series).[9] During the Chávez Presidency, poverty and extreme poverty have gone down strongly: poverty fell from 59.4% in 1999 to 30.2% in 2006 and extreme poverty went down from 21.7% to 9.9% in the same period. Even critics like Instituto Real Elcano from Spain acknowledge these achievements although they cast doubts on the sustainability of these policies.[10]
The Missions have overseen widespread experimentation in what Chávez supporters term citizen- and worker-managed governance,[11][12] as well as the granting of thousands of free land titles, reportedly to formerly landless poor and indigenous communities.[13] Several allegedly unused estates and factories have been expropriated to provide this land.
In March 2006 the Communal Council Law was approved, whereby communities that decide to organize themselves into a council can be given official state recognition and access to federal funds and loans for community projects. This skips the local and state governments that are perceived as corrupt.[14]
The Chavez government also passed a number of laws protecting the rights of the indigenous people of Venezuela, including laws that recognize indigenous rights over the land they traditionally occupied, their rights to prior consultation concerning the exploitation of their natural resources, their rights to manage their own education system based on intercultural and bilingual principles, and a law providing that three native representatives shall sit in the National Assembly, as well as representation in municipal and regional assemblies in regions with a native population.[15]
In September 2007, speaking at the inauguration of the school year, Chavez announced a new curricular programme to be adopted by both public and private schools, which would "promote values of cooperation and solidarity". While promising he would make education his top priority and increase funding, he spoke of his vision of the future of education, based around "learning to create, to live together, to value and to reflect."[16]
Education
- Mission Robinson (launched July 2003) – uses volunteers to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic to Venezuelan adults.
- Mission Ribas (launched November 2003) – provides remedial high school level classes to Venezeulan high school dropouts; named after independence hero José Felix Ribas. In 2004, about 600,000 students were enrolled in this night school programme, and paid a small stipend. They were taught grammar, geography and a second language.
- Mission Sucre (launched in late 2003) – provides free and ongoing basic education courses to adult Venezuelans who had not completed their elementary-level education.
Electoral
- Mission Florentino (launched June 2004) – organized by Hugo Chávez to coordinate the population to vote "No" in the Venezuelan recall referendum of 2004. The organizational centers of the Mission were named "Comando Maisanta" and were the ideological central headquarters for those who wished to keep Chávez as the President of Venezuela for the remainder of his presidential period.
Environmental
- Mission Energía (launched November 2006) – has begun a campaign to reduce environmental degradation by replacing incandescent lightbulbs with more energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs.
Food and nutrition
- Mission Mercal – seeks to provide access to high-quality produce, grains, dairy, and meat at discounted prices. Seeks to provide Venezuela's poor increased access to nutritious, safe, and organic locally- and nationally-grown foodstuffs. Seeks also to increase Venezuela's food sovereignty. Its concrete results, however, are highly debatable, as in 2007 the country is heavily more dependent on imported foodstuffs than it was in 1997, and has been facing chronic shortages in several basic supplies: milk, edible oils, sugar, cereals, eggs, and others.
Healthcare
- Mission Barrio Adentro ("Mission Inside the Neighborhood") – a series of initiatives (deployed in three distinct stages) to provide comprehensive and community health care (at both the primary (Consultorios y Clínicas Populares or popular clinics) and secondary (hospital) levels), in addition to preventative medical counsel to Venezuela's medically under-served and impoverished barrios.
Housing
- Mission Hábitat – has as its goal the construction of new housing units for the poor. The program also seeks to develop agreeable and integrated housing zones that make available a full range of social services – from education to healthcare – which likens its vision to that of new urbanism.
Identification
- Mission Identidad – provides Venezuelan national identity cards to facilitate access to the social services provided by other Missions.
Indigenous rights
- Mission Guaicaipuro (launched October 2003) – carried out by the Venezuelan Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, this program seeks to restore communal land titles and human rights to Venezuela's numerous indigenous communities, in addition to defending their rights against resource and financial speculation by the dominant culture.
Land reform
- Mission Zamora – provides a comprehensive land expropriation and redistribution program that mainly benefits poor Venezuelans. Several large landed estates and factories have been, or are in the process of, being expropriated.
Rural development
- Mission Vuelta al Campo ("Return to the Countryside"; announced mid– 2005) – seeks to encourage impoverished and unemployed urban Venezuelans to willingly return to the countryside.
- Mission Árbol (Mission Tree, announced June 2006) – seeks to recover Venezuelan forests, with plans to plant 100,000 trees in 5 years. The project is also to involve the rural population, in an effort to stop harm to forests through from slash/burn practices by promoting more sustainable agriculture, such as growing coffee or cocoa. The projects aim to achieve this through self organization of the local populations.[17]
Science
- Mission Ciencia ("Mission Science" launched February 2006) – includes a project to train 400,000 people in open source software,[18] and scholarships for graduate studies and the creation of laboratories in different universities.[19]
Socioeconomic transformation
- Mission Vuelvan Caras ("Mission Turn Faces") – has as its objective the transformation of the present Venezuelan economy to one that is oriented towards social, rather than fiscal and remunerative, goals. It seeks to facilitate increased involvement of ordinary citizens in programs of endogenous and sustainable social development, emphasizing in particular the involvement of traditionally marginalized or excluded Venezuelan social and economic sectors, including those participating in Venezuela's significant "informal" economy. The mission's ultimate goal, according to Hugo Chávez, is to foster an economy that brings "a quality and dignified life for all". In January 2006, Chávez declared that, after fulfilling the first stage of the mission, the goal of the second stage will be to turn every "endogenous nuclei of development" into "military nuclei of resistance against American imperialism"[20] as part of a continuous program to create "citizen militias".[21]
Civilian militia
- Mission Miranda – establishes a Venezuelan military reserve composed of civilians who could participate in the defense of the Venezuelan territory.
Culture
- Mission Corazón Adentro - "Heart Within" (the community) - was established in 2004.[22] Initially piloted in the Caracas area, it aims to reaffirm Venezuelan identity by promoting cultural programming in local communities.[23]
Cuban expertise
Many of these programs involve importing expertise from abroad; Venezuela is providing Cuba with 53,000 barrels (8,000 m³) of below-market-rate oil a day in exchange for the service of thousands of physicians, teachers, sports trainers, and other skilled professionals.[24]
Impact
The literacy programs that comprise Mission Sucre are centered on fostering universal literacy among Venezuela's adult populace; an adjunct to this is the facilitation of their comprehension of the Venezuelan Constitution of 1999 and the inherent rights that they, as Venezuelan citizens, are guaranteed under this document.[25]
Mission Barrio Adentro, one of the flagship Bolivarian Missions of widest social impact, has drawn international praise from the Latin American branch of the World Health Organization[26] and UNICEF.[27]
Oil profits, being about US$25 billion in 2004, have allowed the Chávez administration to carry out what he calls a "new socialist revolution." The leftist platform involves a remarkable increase in spending on social programs. The Chávez administration has thus built free health care clinics, subsidized food and created small manufacturing cooperatives.
Between them, these programs have constructed and modernized thousands of public medical and dental clinics, launched massive literacy and education initiatives, subsidized food, gasoline, and other consumer goods, and established numerous worker-managed manufacturing and industrial cooperatives. Critics allege that these programs are corrupt and inefficient, while a number of international organizations – including the UN,[citation needed] UNICEF,[citation needed] and the WHO[26] – have praised the programs as positive models for bringing about social development.
Notes
- ^ UNICEF. (UNICEF, 2005). "Venezuela’s Barrio Adentro: A Model of Universal Primary Health Care". Retrieved October 15, 2005. UNICEF, p. 2. "Barrio Adentro ... is part and parcel of the government's longterm poverty-reduction and social inclusion strategy to achieve and surpass the Millennium Development Goals."
- ^ "Estrategia de Cooperación de OPS/OMS con Venezuela 2006-2008" (PDF). Pan American Health Organization. June 2006. pp. p. 54. http://www.ops-oms.org.ve/site/pwr/docs/CCS_MS_OPS-OMS.pdf. Retrieved 2006-12-31.(Spanish)
- ^ Márquez, Humberto (2005-10-28). "Venezuela se declara libre de analfabetismo". Inter Press Service. http://ipsnoticias.net/nota.asp?idnews=35621. Retrieved 2006-12-29.(Spanish)
- ^ Barreiro C., Raquel (2006-03-04). "Mercal es 34% más barato". El Universal. http://www.eluniversal.com/2006/03/04/eco_art_04206A.shtml. Retrieved 2006-12-29.(Spanish)
- ^ "Banco de la Vivienda transfirió 66 millardos para subsidios". El Universal. 2006-11-10. http://www.eluniversal.com/2006/11/10/eco_art_64504A.shtml. Retrieved 2006-12-29.(Spanish)
- ^ Central Intelligence Agency. (CIA, 1998). The World Factbook 1998: Venezuela. Retrieved October 18, 2005.
- ^ Central Intelligence Agency. (CIA, 2005). The World Factbook 2006: Venezuela. Retrieved July 22, 2006.
- ^ Perdomo, Eucaris (Panorama October 24, 2006). Economía venezolana ha crecido un 12,5% en últimos 12 trimestres(Spanish) Retrieved October 24, 2006
- ^ [1].
- ^ Justo, Marcelo (27 January 2009). "Entre los números y la realidad". BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/specials/2009/chavez_10/newsid_7837000/7837964.stm. Retrieved 31 January 2009.(Spanish)
- ^ Albert, Michael ( Z Communications, November 6, 2005). "Venezuela's Path". Retrieved November 12, 2005.
- ^ Ellsworth, Brian. (New York Times, August 3, 2005). "Venezuela tries the worker-managed route". Retrieved November 12, 2005.
- ^ Wilpert, Gregory. (Venezuela Analysis, September 12, 2005). Venezuela’s Quiet Housing Revolution: Urban Land Reform. Retrieved October 18, 2005. " ... the celebration of the handing out of over 10,000 land titles to families living in Venezuela's poorest urban neighborhoods ... As of mid 2005, the National Technical Office has issued over 84,000 titles to 126,000 families, benefiting about 630,000 barrio inhabitants."
- ^ Conexion social. (Conexion social, 2006). Law Of Communal Councils. Retrieved June 9, 2006.
- ^ Maurice Lemoine. How Chavez changed life in the tribal territories: New rights. Le Monde Diplomatique, July 2007.
- ^ James Ingham. Venezuela leader's school warning. BBC News, September 18, 2007.
- ^ “We Want to Change Human Interaction with Nature”. Accessed 18 August 2006.
- ^ Venezuela Training 400,000 in Open Source. Accessed 18 August 2006.
- ^ Mission Science Grants 5,000 Scholarships. Accessed 18 August 2006.
- ^ Chávez anunció núcleos endógenos militares para la resistencia. El Universal (18 January 2006) (Spanish)
- ^ Ceaser, M. (BBC, 1 Jul 2005). "Chavez's 'citizen militias' on the march". Retrieved 27 June 2006.
- ^ Venezuelanalysis, 11 July 2005.Venezuela Launches New Culture Mission
- ^ Venezuelanalysis, 28 April 2009, Venezuela Opens National Art Gallery and Launches National Reading Plan
- ^ Bruce, Iain. Venezuela shuns IMF advice on oil money. BBC News (24 November 2004).
- ^ Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela – Official text.
- ^ a b WHO: República Bolivariana de Venezuela: Cumpliendo las Metas del Milenio – A report on Venezuela's objectives and progress regarding the UN Millennium Development Goals.
- ^ UNICEF: Venezuela’s Barrio Adentro: A Model of Universal Primary Health Care
References
- Niemeyer, Ralph T. (2004), Under Attack: Morning Dawn in Venezuela, iUniverse, ISBN 0-595-66208-0.
External links
- (Spanish) Gobierno en Línea: Misiones – Official government website detailing the Bolivarian Missions.
- (Spanish) Misión Barrio Adentro – Official government Mission Barrio Adentro web portal.
- (Spanish) Instituto Nacional de Estadística – Venezuela's National Institute of Statistics; has web several portals for accessing demographic and economic data related to the impact of Bolivarian Missions.
- (Spanish) Barrio Adentro – Official government dossier on Barrio Adentro (in Spanish)
- (Spanish) Aló Presidente 225 – Video of a July 2005 episode of Hugo Chávez's talkshow Aló Presidente that features an eight hour tour of a new Barrio Adentro II CDI (Centros de Diagnóstico Integral) in Maturín, Monagas state, Venezuela.
- (Spanish) Programa Nro. 225 - Aló Presidente – Transcript of Aló Presidente 225.
- (English) Venezuela's Cooperative Revolution from Dollars & Sense magazine
- Street Art in Revolutionary Venezuela by Dale Graden, July 30 2009
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