Governance Services and Attracting Members

From May 26 until 30, 2009 DECP's special advisors Jean-Marie Standaert and Thieu Korten visited the umbrella organisation FEPC (Federación de Entidades Empresariales Privadas de Cochabamba) to discuss current matters with them and to give 3 workshops.

The FEPC was founded in 1969 and has 15 members, the Chambers (in Latin America it is quite common to have a separate Chamber of Industry, of Commerce, of Exporters, etc.) and several sector associations. The FEPC board consists of all the members with an executive committee of 7 people. Their main activities are lobby, representation and services. They intend to go more in the direction of services. The making of a sound strategic plan is their main priority at the moment and DECP agreed to support them in this.

The workshop took place on 29 and 30 May in the presence of approx. 35 participants.

A lively discussion with active participation took place. The difficult relation with the current government of Evo Morales and how to improve that relation dominated all the discussions. The results of the evaluation forms show that the participants were very satisfied with the workshops and they also expressed their satisfaction during the workshops.

After the workshops an intention declaration was signed by FEPC and DECP to sign a Partnership Agreement in the future.

Before heading back to The Netherlands, Thieu Korten made a stop-over in the capital of La Paz, where he had a meeting with Desiree Ooft and Harmen van Dijk of the Dutch Embassy and with Alan Shave, former PUM representative.