Development funding stays where someone is ready to sell to the project

In 2022, Bolivia received about USD 334 million in net official development assistance, according to a USAID data fact sheet based on World Bank figures. A year later, the World Bank recorded USD 764 million, more than double. That net figure includes grants and concessional loans, meaning loans with softer rates and terms than the market offers. Behind every dollar there is someone spending it: suppliers, carriers, print shops, hotels, laboratories, consultants. The practical matter is whether your company is among them.

A flow that swings and now faces more competition

Two years do not make a trend. The 2023 figure may reflect loan disbursements bunched into one period. What the data do show is that the flow is uneven, and whoever starts preparing only when a call for proposals appears arrives late.

The global context adds pressure. According to the OECD, official aid from donor countries totaled USD 174.3 billion in 2025, a 23.1% drop from 2024, and the organization projects a further 5.8% decline in 2026. There is less money to share, and anyone who wants a part will have to show more order and better projects.

Given that, the usual reading would be that little remains to be tapped. The useful reading is different: when funding gets scarce, the winners are those who present projects well, account for spending in an orderly way and have reliable local counterparts. These are management capabilities, and they are built inside the country. A company that already records every expense properly and delivers on time is doing, without knowing it, half of the preparation work.

What stays in the territory depends on who can bid

Imagine a water and sanitation project funded from abroad in a rural area of the Cochabamba valley. The funder approves a budget and a local institution runs it. Every line in that budget is bought somewhere: pipes, material transport, training workshops, printed material, auditing, final evaluation.

If the region has suppliers that meet the requirements, the money is spent there. If it does not, the purchase happens in another city or abroad. The project still reaches its beneficiaries, but the rest of the local economy never notices. The difference lies in who was ready to sell to the project.

There is also a second-round effect. The hardware dealer who sells the pipes pays salaries, buys from his own wholesaler and restocks. The hotel that hosts a workshop hires extra staff that week. That later spending depends on the first sale, and no aid statistic records it. It is hard to measure precisely, but any business owner in the area sees it in the till.

A chain with more links than meet the eye

The direct beneficiary is the last link and the most visible one. Many others work before that point:

• Suppliers of goods and services. Distributors, hardware stores, print shops, transport companies, hotels and the halls where workshops take place.
• Managing institutions. Foundations, associations and NGOs that design the project, run it, hire staff and report to the funder.
• Professionals. Accountants, lawyers, external auditors, evaluators, monitoring specialists and field technicians.
• Academia. Universities and institutes that train those professionals, produce diagnostics and measure results.
• Co-funding companies. Those that contribute a counterpart (the share of the cost that the local partner puts in) or in-kind support through their social responsibility programs.

Each link earns income, experience and references. Those references weigh on the next project, and that accumulation makes one territory more competitive than another.

A different shift in stance in each field

Ceasing to see the country as a passive recipient does not require speeches. It asks each actor to change one habit.

If you sell goods or services, the habit to change is waiting to be called. It pays to find out who runs projects in your department, register as a supplier and understand what they require before paying an invoice.

If you lead a managing institution, fundraising tends to appear when a project ends. It works better as a permanent function, with a calendar of calls, more than one funder and projects drafted before they are needed. A foundation with a project profile ready, including a diagnostic and a base budget, answers in days when an opportunity appears. One that starts from zero needs weeks, and many calls do not wait that long.

If you are a professional, some functions are needed by every project, every time: financial management, auditing, evaluation, monitoring. Specializing in them, to standards that funders recognize, puts you on a short list.

If you work in academia, the room lies in linking teaching and research to real projects: baselines, evaluations, case studies and student placements. Funders include these products among their requirements, and delivering them on time opens doors.

In all four cases the move is the same: from being the recipient of a resource to being a partner with capabilities of your own.

What a funder looks at before trusting you

An international funder does not know your company or your institution. It decides on what it can verify on paper. That is why traceability weighs more than size: orderly invoices, signed contracts, up-to-date financial statements, a record of deliveries made on time.

A mid-sized distributor with a complete file can have more options than a large company that answers late with incomplete documents. The same goes for a small foundation facing a well-known network: if it can show how it spent every boliviano of the previous project, it starts ahead.

This has an uncomfortable consequence and an encouraging one. Uncomfortable, because preparing that documentation takes months and produces no immediate sales. Encouraging, because order can be built with resources that a company of 15 to 50 employees already has: a responsible person, a tidy archive and the discipline of recording every expense.

What to do on Monday

1. Write down what you sell that a development project buys often: transport, printing, training, technology, catering, minor works, professional services.
2. Build a supplier file with up-to-date company documents, financial statements, three client references and a basic policy on ethics and conflicts of interest, which many funders ask for.
3. List five institutions that run projects in your department and ask to be added to their supplier register.
4. Review your working capital. Disbursements often arrive in tranches, and payment can take longer than an ordinary sale. Work out how much you can finance before you bid.
5. Learn the basic vocabulary: terms of reference (what the buyer requires), expense eligibility (which costs the funder accepts) and accountability reporting.
6. Pick a small opportunity to start: a one-off service, a single delivery, an amount your cash flow can bear. The first reference is worth more than the margin on that first contract.

Each funder's rules and the tax implications for your case should be confirmed with the funder itself and with your advisor. What this list describes is commercial and documentary order.

Development funds arrive in good years and lean years. What changes from one to the next is how much of that money turns into contracts, jobs and experience inside the country. That is decided in each company, institution and university that prepares before the call arrives.