GREEN JOBS AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

Scientific and applied knowledge is the key to development

At the global level, a new paradigm of development and well-being relies on the creation of green jobs -i.e decent or dignified and that, at the same time, contribute to preserving and regenerating the environment-. In Bolivia, the Political Constitution of the State (2009) establishes “dignified jobs for all”; but progress has been very modest. Still, jobs in harmony with the environment are scarce; although there are some advances in environmental mitigation, preservation and regeneration measures.

In this context, small agricultural producers are in the worst situation in terms of exclusion and vulnerability -despite the fact that the sector is key to sustainable socioeconomic development-. In labor matters, in 2019, for example, vulnerable jobs reached 91% in the agricultural sector!, and labor income from the sector represented, on average, 37% of the national (estimates based on the Surveys of Homes); still being the situation of women more alarming. These conditions respond both to exclusionary labor regulations –concentrated on employer-employee relations–, and to the agricultural situation itself, which faces a series of productivity and sustainability problems.

Under this framework, the INESAD Foundation and members of the Private University of Santa Cruz and the Institute of Economic Studies of the Technical University of Oruro, under the auspices of the International Development Research Center (IDRC), seek to advance in the creation of green jobs based on agricultural development that allows not only fairer, more stable and sustainable income, but also better working conditions with a gender perspective. The initiative finds the collaborative support of the Quinoa Network from a research-action perspective, making the work viable under an initial vision of: Build a broad evidence of the social protection system from a perspective of generating green jobs for quinoa producers , focused on indigenous women, in response to a low-carbon recovery from Covid-19. The quinoa sector is key because it faces sustainability problems both due to soil degradation and greater climatic problems, as well as due to the sharp drop in prices.

Systemic Project Approach