From north to south. Antofagasta, a coastal city in northern Chile, offers an example of how these changes are taking place.  Until recently city residents lacked access to the seacoast, which had become misused and abandoned. After the FNDR funded construction of a coastal avenue, developers built a beach resort, property values increased, the local economy revived, raising the standard of living. Local people now take pride in the city’s new image.

Hundreds of projects around the country provide similar examples. One is the health center in Cerro Navia, in the suburbs of Santiago, whose facilities were formerly so limited and makeshift that people preferred to go elsewhere for medical care. After the new center was inaugurated, people not only returned, but also took “ownership” of it and volunteered to help with its maintanance.

“For this community, the project has meant a 100 percent improvement in the quality of life and attention received,” says Patricia Vega, director of the Cerro Navia Community Center, which serves 40,000 low-income people.  “When people feel that an institution cares, they want to make a contribution. A health center that is well laid out, spacious and bright, can offer better quality service,” says Vega.

The new facility also offers space to community organizations. “We’re proud to have links to the indigenous Mapuche culture, to which 13.7 percent of the local population belongs. Once a week a traditional folk healer or machi comes to the center to help with social organization activities,” explains Vega.

Impulse to decentralization. The FNDR has also been helping to decentralize government by strengthening the management and planning ability of local jurisdictions. “Funds are not disbursed until people demonstrate that they are able to use them well,” explains Ángel. “They design their own projects, which must compete against many others and be approved on their merits. This is a sort of training, because decentralization in the regions is strengthening the management capacity of the institutions,” he adds.

Ruíz Fernández, from the FNDR’s regional development division, explains that the program is now evolving toward a focus that emphasizes quality of local management over the quantity of proposals. “Today we are betting on a model that seeks to add value to our investments by strengthening the management capacity of local governments, which are taking on more and more responsibility.”

This, in the end, may be the most valuable legacy of the FNDR. By directing more resources to Chile’s isolated areas, the program has given local jurisdictions more decision-making capability, enabling them to stimulate development and eliminate the vast socioeconomic differences between the more developed central region and the rest of the country.

This integration process has, in turn, contributed to Chile’s progress in poverty reduction over the past decade, during which the poverty level dropped from 38.6 percent in 1990 to 20.6 percent in 2000. “This has been Chile’s revolution,” said Ángel. “Poverty has been halved, thanks in great measure to this sort of revolution. I think that the FNDR deserves much of the credit.”

Guillermo Ramallo Arteaga Principal of Colbún High School in El Maule, Chile.