Bolivia is a country with contradictory trends which have often led to violent disputes about distrubution of wealth and reduction of poverty versus upholding of market based principles and legal framework. At the extreme, there are two ideological positions which appear totally incompatible that is socialist versus neoliberal policies. For more than 10 years, Bolivia followed IMF inspired financial, fiscal, trade and economic policies but did not improve its poverty nor did it manage to graduate from being a heavily-indebted poor country (HIPC). The new approach by Bolivia's new president, Mr. Evo Morales, appears to focus on redistribution policies following the examples of Cuba and Venezuela at the risk of loosing opportunities to make full use of its economic, energy and trade potential. CSEND has been involved in capacity building projects at government level in Bolivia at the beginning of the new millenium. The argument put forward by CSEND's publication below is that Bolivia does not have to choose between two extremes - socialism versus neoliberal capitalism- but should rather explore alternative options which could help it achieve both reduction of poverty while at the same time being an active partner in the world economy.