USAID Hires 'Social Marketing' Firm to Promote Bolivian Healthcare Project
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded the contract to The Manoff Group, a self-described “pioneer in using the power of mass media to create public awareness of urgent health problems.” Under a “strategic objective agreement” being negotiated between USAID/Bolivia and the Government of Bolivia, USAID says it is supporting existing efforts to “strengthen capacity of the decentralized public sector health care system to provide clinical and community-based services in 131 municipalities.” The three partners are The Manoff Group, the Ministry of Health (through the PROSIN Project), and PROCOSI.
Infant mortality rates that are double the international average are common in some segments of Bolivian society, particularly in the Altiplano region outside of La Paz, USAID says. Large numbers of cases of tuberculosis and other diseases also are having a pervasive, debilitating effect on the health of Bolivians, many of whom never or rarely receive treatment, the agency points out in documents related to the project, which are available via the FedBizOpps contracting database.
The documents also indicate a desire of USAID to enable PROCOSI to make further inroads into areas whose economies are tied to coca production, as evidenced by the following excerpt.
PROCOSI will establish a strategy to strengthen its relationships with non-member organizations and other key stakeholders involved in alternative development in the prioritized municipalities of the coca growing regions in Yungas and Chapare. PROCOSI will coordinate its activities with the contractor and PROSIN II, as well as with the Agriculture Extension Program of USAID, in the mentioned areas. PROCOSI’s strategy in the coca growing regions will begin with a consultative process prior to selecting organizations to implement projects.
The contract, which USAID awarded to The Manoff Group on Monday, is for a minimum three-year effort to promote and encourage local groups to support PROCOSI's “capacity building” of decentralized healthcare institutions.
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Submitted on September 1st, 2005 by Stephen PeacockAccording to USAID:
This and other information on the program also is available en Espanol via USAID's Web site.
Additionally, the Government of Bolivia offers an extensive list of links to related healthcare policy and program data sources en Espanol.
I would only like to add at this point my fervent hope that this initiative will sincerely embrace -- and not merely proclaim -- the desire to help the Bolivian people improve the nation's healthcare system -- and to develop control of that system at the local level, as USAID's program-policy goal claims.
Perhaps like other readers, my suspicions were raised when I came across references to overcoming potential healthcare program-barriers specific to Bolivia's coca-growing regions. In light of past (and present) actions related to the Drug War and U.S.-led counterinsurgency programs in the hemisphere, it is not unreasonable to pose the question: Is USAID seeking to honestly penetrate or will it covertly infiltrate those regions?
I do not suggest that I have evidence to indicate ulterior motives behind this program, other than skepticism based on what history has revealed about the United States' self-serving involvement in South America. Hopefully other Authentic Journalists with greater, inside knowledge of this program can shed light one way or another as the initiative continues to unfold.