Latin America & Caribbean

Context:

In Haiti, more than half of the population lives below the poverty line, making roughly one dollar per day, and nearly half face problems related to malnutrition. With regard to agriculture, small local producers struggle to compete with big industries. However, intensive planting has caused soil erosion, at the same time that the forest has fallen to 2% of total land area. Poverty resulting from job insecurity and lack of jobs in general has led many to relocate to the Dominican Republic.

Goals:

Alternatives supported the organization of the Pan-Amazon Social Forum that took place in the city of Belém in the Brazilian Amazon in January 2003. This thematic forum, held in the sphere of the World Social Forum (WSF), allowed representatives from Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and Brazil to discuss the issues surrounding the Amazon, one of the world’s largest natural resource reserves.

Context:

Providing the backdrop to this project were attempts by Cuban civil society to improve its democratic system by encouraging increased citizen participation in policymaking.

Since the revolution, the Cuban people have been actively participating in various areas of the public sector, such as health care, education and the justice system. Today, however, the people’s involvement has descended into carrying out simple tasks that have little influence on the functioning of government.

Goals and Achievements:

A project with the worker training school Escolas de Marcois currently in the preparation stages, with the goal of improving the training and networking of producers in worker cooperatives and consumers of the popular solidarity economy. The project should help improve the living conditions in six regions of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, where several solidarity economy programs already exist.

Context:

Drought is a natural physical phenomenon that frequently and regularly afflicts Northeast Brazil. For a long time, drought has been harming Brazil’s semi-arid regions, mainly by destroying local ecosystems, which causes significant losses in biodiversity.