The case of Bolivia is quite illustrative in this regard. After more than a decade in power and following two constitutional referenda to extend his periods in office, Evo Morales’ government had cut ties with almost all civil society organizations without links to their “Movimiento al Socialismo” or MAS, which was originally conceived as a coalition of social and peasant movements rather than a political party. Building on these origins and in line with Louis XIV’s famous assertion, “L’Etat c’est moi”, Evo and his colleagues seemed to say: “civil society is us”. In his books and articles, his right-hand man Alvaro Garcia Linera had repeatedly declared all donor-funded CSOs as agents of imperialism, openly questioning their legitimacy and cornering them through draconian regulations that aimed at cutting off their foreign financial support. In such a dire context, it was extremely difficult to find a Dialogue Host for the INSPIRED dialogue process, which was to address the (lack of) access to health of the most vulnerable populations. Our final choice for the UNITAS network was dictated by its longstanding reputation as the backbone of Bolivian social movements –it was founded in 1976, under the military dictatorship, and even had a younger Evo among the many alumni of its training programmes– as well as its country- wide outreach and support base. At the same time, the fact that the organisation had been one of the most outspoken critics of the government’s efforts to co-opt civil society and restrict its freedom of expression entailed the risk of putting the incumbent officials on the defensive.