"For us alternative development is that we ask for salt to make charqui (salted llama meat) and they give us detergent with which we don’t know how to do our laundry, we ask for seeds and loans for planting and they plant their cement and rocks so they can cut ribbons, we desire technical and farming assistance and they give us participatory workshops to pump us for information, we ask for information regarding international funding and they tell us it’s not possible because it’s secret”. (Dante Deza, farmer from Alto Inambari in the Puno Jungle, CONAPA manager, Perú)

This paper contains Cabieses' reflections on the following four points:

• Some of the lessons learned from promoting what is known as “alternative development” projects and programs;
• The nature and dichotomies of the Coca leaf for producers and consumers in the Andean countries, but particularly Peru and Bolivia;
• The experience of the Rountable Discussions between cocalero farmers in Peru and the government; and
• Some common Andean proposals -from those below and on the inside- which seek respect for the social, cultural, agroecological, and comercial economic differences between our countries.