This study considers the design of public policies as well as initiatives which, emerging from civil society, aim to influence the economic development of the country and the distribution of its productive resources. The paper has four parts. The first describes the current situation of Bolivia's peasants and indigenous peoples. The second is an analysis of the main public policies concerning rural development in the last two decades of the twentieth century. The third is a summary of the continued extreme rural poverty and the fourth argues that it is necessary to change some constraints in structural adjustment policies (SAP) and to develop a long-term national strategy for rural development.