Landlocked between Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile and Argentina, Bolivia is the highest, and in some respects the most isolated country in Latin America. It is also one of the most culturally diverse. 80% of its 8.6 million inhabitants are descended from indigenous Amerindian peoples.

Rich in natural resources such as natural gas, zinc and gold, Bolivia is the world’s largest producer of tin. Yet, despite ample cultural and natural assets, poverty is widespread; 70% of the population struggles to make a living. Bolivia ranks as one of poorest countries in the region.

ICT in Bolivia

The number of fixed line and mobile phone subscribers has increased dramatically over the last 5 years. Growth in the number of people using the Internet was also seen in the period 2000-2005, increasing from around 1.5% to nearly 4%. This is a low figure in comparison to developed countries, but relatively high in terms of the average (8%) seen in the least developed countries in the world. It provides a starting point for the current and future activities in ICT4D. The relatively high adult literacy level in Bolivia (87% in 2005) is encouraging, and provides a basis for the task of further introducing ICTs into the development sectors of the country.

IICD’s Bolivia Country Programme

The Country Programme, known as TiCBolivia was started in 2000 and is going strong with 16 projects and 2 leveraging programmes in the sector’s agriculture, governance and education. The projects have expanded their reach from 90 to 125 access points in Bolivia: 85 secondary schools and 40 information access centres in agriculture and governance. The centres have trained 7,600 persons and serve 64,000 users and over 500,000 beneficiaries operating in all departments of Bolivia. Most centres are using innovative and sustainable connectivity and ICT solutions.

Leveraging is realized by support to the Ministry of Education in the implementation of a national ICT for education programme including 1,000 telecentres and an education portal providing content. Participation in this programme enables IICD to broker expansion of the education projects through co-implementation of the government programme. Furthermore, IICD advices the Departmental Government in Santa Cruz in the implementation of an agriculture information system, based on the experience of project partner ICO.

The partners have consolidated active exchanges of experiences and lobbying and policy participation in the network TiCBolivia. The membership is expanded to 25 organisations, including grass-root organisations, NGO, government and academic institutions. The network is currently a national reference point for ICT4D, and is focusing on key needs defined by the partners: connectivity issues and fund raising.

Impact & lessons learned

IICD and its local partners are extending the development impact of TiCBolivia to end-users, particularly the rural poor. But what is the impact so far? How far has it helped to alleviate poverty? And what lessons have been learned in the process?

We look at a variety of factors to assess the impact (2006) of the projects, and the lessons learned. In all sectors this includes measuring awareness, empowerment and economic impact. In education an additional two factors are quality of education and socio-cultural impact. For governance projects empowerment is particularly important, and quality of governance is an additional indicator.