Alejandro Trujillo

Alejandro combines indigenous tradition with business logic to create new ways of community action aimed at changing power dynamics in the rural economy of Bolivia. Alejandro, through his innovative governance model, promotes the transition of these communities from a welfare economy model, in which residents are economically compensated for the exploitation of their land, toward a model of empowerment, thanks to which the community and its inhabitants are the new owners of productive assets for their own social development.

Alejandro has created a new governance model in the rural and indigenous community which combines indigenous traditions with business logic. In essence, the model assigns a new role to the community, turning them into the owners of social businesses in which each and every family has a vote in the processes of decision-making that are key to the business’s development.

Alejandro recognized that the key to challenging the power of oil and gas companies was to structure community-owned companies as corporations, which are owned through shares. Ownership structure is determined on an equal basis, with each family contributing the same amount of money as determined by the community, to avoid voting rights concentration; this allows for each family to have the same voting power. This new legal entity of one share and one vote per family changes the dynamic of the community and empowers it, leading to a shift in the power relations inside the communities. And, by promoting women as leaders of new social businesses under his model, Alejandro strengthens gender equality and women’s empowerment in rural communities. More broadly, with his model, Alejandro is questioning and changing underlying racist and discriminatory practices at different stages of the process of establishing companies, that normally create obstacles for rural communities to join the fuel sales sector. As a consequence, communities are not only becoming more aware of the subtle ways of exploitation they have been subject to, but also, they are becoming owners of the means that turn each family involved in Alejandro’s governance model into players with equal negotiation power as any other player such as the government, businesses, NGOs, and civil society. Alejandro's vision is holistic and long-term; he plants the seed of self-esteem in these communities, so they are able to choose the direction of their progress and defend their lands and people.

Alejandro also influences the development of communities through economic diversification. The creation of social businesses owned by the community opens a wide range of business possibilities that goes beyond those usually designated by government authorities, through economic incentives that only support production activities in areas such as agriculture, handicrafts, and tourism. With the creation of community-owned gas and service stations on the main Bolivian highways, Alejandro is changing the local traditional development model of the rural communities. Income from community businesses is used to promote social ventures and build needed infrastructure for improving the communities’ living areas. This new way of rural development is also changing the communities’ mentality. Whereas before they were living day-by-day, now they are shifting to a long-term perspective on how to best manage their investments and to be involved in the decision-making process with regards to communal savings. From the welfare and limited development model, they are moving to a business model in which the community redefines its role within the social system and rural economy, but now with the visibility and participation to build their own destiny.

Currently, almost a quarter of the National System of protected areas in Bolivia is in the midst of extractive activities by the oil industry. This has been felt most strongly in rural and indigenous regions: of the 39 indigenous territories with ownership titles in the Amazonian region (both north and south) of Chapare and Chaco, 36 territories overlap with hydrocarbon areas under development.

YPFB, the state-owned oil and gas company in Bolivia (Bolivian Fiscal Oil Fields), its subsidiaries, and transnational firms typically focus their social and environmental management efforts through compensation mechanisms, CSR programs, and socio-environmental projects. Businesses must use 1% of their total investment on hydrocarbon projects to benefit indigenous communities. However, these regulations are incredibly low compensation (even if legally enforced), considering the detrimental social and environmental consequences of extractive activities. In this context, indigenous communities do not perceive direct benefits from the extraction and highway development activities. Instead, due to these activities, the traditional economic base of communities is destroyed, leading to population fragmentation due to migration, and less access to vital resources for rural communities, thus delaying their development for generations. In addition, Bolivia also levies a 5% tax, the Direct Taxes on Hydrocarbon (IDH). However, the current welfare model of the state is overspending funds with a lack of transparency on where they are going. As a result, communities living in these areas have only received modest royalties from the government, keeping them in poverty.

Previous attempts to take charge of their own communities’ welfare have met with resistance. Public sector processes in Bolivia are bureaucratic and embed racist and discriminatory practices, which cause difficulties for the communities trying to enter the gasoline market. These practices have been detected both in the private and public sectors, including government entities and banks, who refused to open bank accounts in these communities or authorize their operations, despite fulfilling all the requirements to establish a company. In this scenario, communities were left without the necessary mechanisms or stepping-stones to take their destiny into their hands, resigning them to receiving YPFB handouts. But it is worth mentioning that the lack of empowerment transcends the community in relation to others, because it also permeates internal dynamics within communities themselves. Female members of communities in these territories are excluded from decision-making, even though they are key actors in mobilizing collective organizing. For instance, women are the ones fostering gatherings among community members, leading projects seeking improved living conditions, and discussing pressing issues in the community and coming up with ideas on how to solve them.

The feeling of being left out of key decisions that affect them directly has led communities to more radical expressions of disagreement, as evidenced by the 2011 blocking of the TIPNIS (National Park and Indigenous Territory Isiboro Sécure) highway, where protestors marched 370 miles towards La Paz to defend their territory. However, in May 2017, the president announced the highway project would be completed. Eventually, the project was legally approved, and the highway is currently under construction. Over 1200 people were relocated and natural resources in this protected area are being devastated. Families have been left without the means to survive, forcing them to migrate to the cities and look for alternative ways to make a living.

Alejandro came up with his strategy and vision in 2013 while working to support communities in their fight to acquire fuel stations. Up until that point, the government had prevented them from acquiring fuel because their communities were located outside the coverage areas where the government normally built gas stations. Community needs were ignored by socio-environmental management regulations as well, considered little more than environmental liabilities that needed to be compensated, rather than concerns of valid actors with a seat at the table. When the government began extending the highway system through rural communities and offered the usual handouts, Alejandro helped them to receive permits to build and operate local gas stations by the highways instead. In 2014 the government accepted Alejandro’s proposal, which became the genesis of Alejandro’s idea to empower rural communities at the center of his governance model so that they could participate actively in the benefits of economic development of their lands.

The model brings new elements to the traditional rural economy top-down model through a new governance model that shifts the power dynamic, establishing companies (i.e., service stations) where each family becomes the owner of a company’s share. They structure the financing process through a crowdfunding campaign within the community and issue shares to each family. To avoid the concentration of votes, they aim to maintain a uniform ownership ratio (1 family = 1 share). Initially, the community has to collectively come up with the initial capital (30%), a significant action because it changes the welfare mentality as well as the power dynamics in the community’s relationship with the government. These legally organized communities with direct income from their wholly-owned social businesses are then able to join bidding processes, access credit, and make decisions regarding their own development path.

Alejandro’s methodological approach to mobilizing his model starts with awareness-raising activities and training programs for the community, focused on rural entrepreneurship opportunities according to their reality. First, CAMINNOS makes direct contact with the leadership of the community, contacting them through their local syndicate or Association. Then, Alejandro visits the community and presents CAMINNOS’ development project to all community members and does a baseline study for indicators and impact monitoring. The community makes the commitment to work together to realize the “community-owned gas station” project. Then, Alejandro begins the project planning and construction of the “community-owned gas station,” empowering the community to incorporate it into the fuel supply value chain. CAMINNOS oversees the gas station construction until its completion. Alejandro and CAMINNOS run a technical and financial feasibility study and a topographic analysis of the land, file the application for regulatory authorization, and legally form the commercial entity that will be owned by the community. Finally, CAMINNOS provides guidance on commercial management, monitoring the operation of gas stations, corporate governance of the companies, diversification, and transformation of the rural economic system.

An additional aspect of this model is that it provides the communities with the skills and counseling needed to transform them into active players in the local economy as the owners of productive means. Alejandro not only facilitates the creation of community businesses, but also puts in place a development and governance structure used by CAMINNOS to empower, support, and accompany communities through training in entrepreneurship, project management, and business. Once communities have the full business picture, they lead the management and investment of service stations and gasoline revenues. The implementation of this model has resulted in, on the one hand, communities identifying as the absolute leaders of their development process, and on the other hand, communities becoming part of a collective, where they participate in negotiations with the same power as the rest of the players in various industries.

As part of his impact, it is important to mention that the establishment of a service station can take up to 18 months. However, Alejandro has managed to consolidate seven social companies in seven different communities (Entre Rios, Sacaba, Colomi y Eterazama, Samuzabeti, and Cristalmayu located in Cochabamba and Beni), shortening the lead times; each community in these localities is the owner of a service station. Currently, Alejandro is in a preliminary study of two more stations (San Ignacio de Velasco – Santa Cruz and Uñurani and Parque Nacional Toro Toro – Potosí). So far, through community companies, Alejandro has benefitted 1,500 families (roughly 4,500 members of the shareholder families).

For the continuity of economic development of rural communities, Alejandro implements “sociocratic” processes, to help the community determine the reinvestment of profits in projects focused on changing the rural economic system and creating sustainable development. As a consequence, this new dynamic has propelled communities to establish other companies, mainly spin-offs of service stations, such as mechanic workshops, lubricant stores, and investments in the development of their agricultural activities, among others. Communities also invest in common social projects such as building hospitals, buying out additional gasoline stations, and building schools. As a positive consequence, families in such communities have an additional income source, which also lowers the risk of migrating and community fragmentation. The focus on the diversification of the community’s economy has promoted them to engage in digital inclusion programs and to generate insurance products adapted to the reality and context of the entrepreneurial communities through an agreement with an insurance broker in Bolivia.

A network of community associations has started to emerge thanks to Alejandro’s work in diverse productive areas in rural communities. CAMINNOS has developed a strategy with partner social organizations such as Huellas y Futuro (NGO); the CNAMIB (the Bolivian National Confederation of Indigenous Women); the National Union of Mixed Transportation Eterazama; and The National Agricultural Union Tricolor, who have provided support on development projects in the different communities.

Alejandro is utilizing this network as a vehicle to replicate his model, so communities do not depend solely on CAMINNOS. In turn, the network allows communities to learn from each other and establish strong relationships. It also strengthens their leadership representation so that communities are better prepared to face their challenges, address their needs, and defend their interests. Since Alejandro realizes the fundamental role of women in community life, he has partnered with diverse groups of women in these communities to maximize their already strong leadership roles and incorporate them into community companies’ decision-making. As an illustration of women’s convening power in rural communities, in 2018, Chiquitania was affected by forest fires that destroyed an important part of the communities’ lands, their homes, and their livelihoods. At that time, women resolved the situation through welfare activities and collecting donations from the government and private enterprises. Nowadays, they are working on strategies to finance their own coffee ventures and sell their products online, generating revenues to create an impact in their communities.

In addition, with the Confederation with Indigenous Women represented by Wilma Mendoza, Alejandro started the first steps to build a gas station in San Ignacio as Wilma reunited all the representatives, including the local leadership or "Caciques." Alejandro presented his program with a gender focus because the aim was to invite women to become business leaders. Even before the gas station started to operate, there has been a change of mindset among members of this confederation just in the first stage of the sensitization program (leadership and entrepreneurial strategies) because they have changed their welfare mentality to one where they feel empowered to respond to their problems. It is precisely the change in mindsets that Alejandro is targeting with strategic alliances such as the one that CAMINNOS established with the NGO Huellas y Futuro (run by Fellow Daniela Valdivia), to strengthen the areas related to human and social development as well as women and children empowerment in rural communities.

In a similar line of work during the pandemic, Alejandro started working with co-ops in the regions of Gran Chaco in Torotorose National Park Region. To ensure access to income in this community of 2,000 women who did not have any for seven months because of the pandemic, Alejandro applied his governance model to a new system for socio-productive programs by introducing NFTs in the exchange system under Blockchain technology, tied to handcrafted creations in the community, creating an additional income source and generating cultural impact. This project is currently implemented in rural areas of Bolivia, Argentina, and Paraguay, which has allowed Alejandro to validate his community governance model on an international level, with the support of the IDB Lab and other NGOs that work in the region, with a focus on the use of Blockchain to create a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) in which these handmade artisan products can be sold virtually.

The leading work of Alejandro through CAMINNOS has started to show remarkable results. Already 4500 community members have directly benefited from community companies, with 1,500 families owning a new source of income thanks to revenues from gas stations. In terms of gender-related impact, 60% of members of the Board of Directors of community companies are women, making them protagonists in strategic processes that define the roadmap for these ventures. In line with this, the companies’ statutes establish a minimum threshold to cover vacancies, so that 60% of the workforce is represented by women. With a gas station close to their community, families spend less of their monthly budget on fuel for their equipment and vehicles. Consequently, there is an average reduction of 20% in consumption. Community members no longer must travel long distances to fill the tanks of their vehicles, and savings are allocated to improving household conditions.

In 2021, during his first year as part of the Ashoka Network and the following six months of exclusive work to consolidate CAMINNOS as an organization, he was awarded the Innovation of the Rural Youth prize from the Agriculture Development International Fund of the United Nations for his innovative model of community service stations. In 2022, having received more international exposure and visibility, he continued working in two other communities in Bolivia, achieving regulatory approval to develop two service stations that belong to 80 and 68 families respectively, from rural communities in the tropical area of Bolivia. Now more than ever, Alejandro believes in the power of community entrepreneurship and the potential for innovation in rural areas, as he considers this to be an untapped opportunity in the sector for impact investment in rural areas and in community-owned companies. This is why he is working non-stop to standardize his impact focus and governance model through open-source strategies and social franchise models

The social franchise model is currently being developed, and it will consist of providing the communities with one initial training session on business organization initiation and operation, structuring the community companies’ corporate and shareholding governance, filing for regulatory permits, and overseeing the first year of operations of community companies. CAMINNOS aims to charge a royalty of 0.5% of yearly net revenue, for the first year of the company’s operation. For future plans, Alejandro is evaluating 11 national parks for natural gas reserves and highway projects, each of which would require new social projects. In the next five to ten years, the expectation is to build a network of 15 fully functional community service stations.

His system change strategy also includes promoting specific legal regulations to change the current status of the sustainable development of rural areas. The objective is to allow the inclusion of indigenous communities in disruptive and scalable sectors such as energy and technology, making them business players and thus creating special mechanisms to protect and prioritize vulnerable communities. Recently, CAMINNOS paired up with the National Reserve Authority in the Local Innovators Contest hosted by the Local Innovator Network and Ashoka, in which Alejandro’s Blockchain idea was the winning project among 80 public-private alliances in Latin America. The project on Blockchain technology for rural communities allows them to scale the project and present it in New York to specialized panels and economic development institutions.

Alejandro comes from a family of lawyers. In 2006, he witnessed a massive racial confrontation in Cochabamba that resulted in the death of two close friends who were beaten by protestors in front of his house. This situation marked him – at first, he felt frustrated and resented the protestors. But this situation made him think about what the real problem was, and he began volunteering with NGOs such as “Manos Amigas,” where he could witness and understand first-hand the hardships of the people migrating from rural areas to the city. Following this event, he decided to start working to help displaced people facing racial discrimination. Alejandro had been born in a poor rural community that was next-door to a refinery, and although he did not grow up there, he understood how these communities were affected.

During his first years at university, Alejandro was a volunteer for several organizations, such as the Blood Bank in his city. He actively undertook the role of counselor and cofounder of the Bolivian Entrepreneur Association and other several organizations that generate a social impact. Alejandro also has been a professor at different universities nationwide, promoting social entrepreneurship within his classes in an active manner and taking part of national events such as Startup Weekend, where he had the opportunity to be a mentor, supporting Bolivian entrepreneurs.

As a lawyer, in 2013, he started to get involved with rural communities by providing counsel to sign an agreement with a gas station to buy gasoline for the vehicles of the members of the community. The government did not authorize it but suggested instead that the community build their own gas stations. Alejandro took this idea as an opportunity and began to work on the development of vulnerable communities. This experience gave him a deeper understanding of their realities, realizing the lack of the majority of the basic benefits that they should have.

In 2015 as he was completing his law degree at the University of Michigan, thanks to a funding opportunity, Alejandro established CAMINNOS, the Center for Multidisciplinary Advance for Social Innovation. Through CAMINNOS, he was able to obtain grants in the United States to finance community projects in Bolivia. This process entailed weeks of hard work and organization, which in turn inspired Alejandro’s classmates to support his idea. Together with colleagues from Israel, China, Japan, Albania, Belgium, and other countries, they developed the base of CAMINNOS as an organization that promotes social entrepreneurship. Currently, the same group are the Advisory Board of CAMINNOS, supporting the organization through their knowledge and network from each of their home countries.

After Alejandro graduated, he received several offers to work in an important law firm in the United States, but he rejected all in order to return to Bolivia and fight for his dreams to give justice and opportunities to the neediest communities through CAMINNOS.