Economic Overview - Neal

Bolivia is currently one of the most financially poor countries in South America. Over 60 percent of the nation’s people live below the poverty line and in terrible conditions. In addition to strong internal efforts, some outside groups (such as habitat for humanity or UNICEF) have been trying to help progress things like infrastructure and access to good education, but it has been a hard struggle. Especially with the amount of outside aid that is being accepted going down (partially due to the amount that the president Evo Morales is allowing), the improvement is slow going. The country has done several things to try help but is ultimately doing a fair amount of harm to the local residents. To lock down a loan around 140 million dollars, the government was forced to privatize public industries. These include oil refineries and water systems.


This has meant that there are situations that could have ended in some residents have been made to pay much more for things like water because of the privatization of the industries. A statistic says that at one point, citizens were spending up to 23% of their monthly income to buy clean water. Not helped by outside or internal subsidies, the people are receiving little to no help to reduce the cost. Things like this have lead to civil unrest, protests, and riots.


Though depending on the location of population, the generally accepted amount of money earned each year is somewhere around $1500 USD1. On a related note, the unemployment rate seems to be somewhere around 7%2. Despite the amount of people employed, it still seems that many families posses little to no money which all goes to food, water, homes, and necessities, often leaving things like higher or specialized education to be prioritized very low. Also due to low financial stability and the inability to buy healthy nutritious foods, malnutrition is a large problem for children. Because of it, around 25% of children under five are suffer from stunting as a result3. In addition, most of the population of Bolivia, especially the indigenous, do not have access to health care or proper sanitation.


However, there is a hope and hard work being done. Hundreds of organizations and mission groups are being sent to Bolivia each year. Some groups do volunteer work, trying to help further develop civil infrastructure. Others are focused on providing and implementing systems to sanitize and transport clean water. Yet another large chunk of the volunteers are helping to provide free or affordable health care for the residents of Bolivia. Even with all of these efforts to help Bolivia, the scale at which they are being done is relatively small compared to what is needed. With the recent focuses that seem to be making Bolivia isolate itself from large outside corporations, countries like china4 and the U.S. (and some corporations within) have been trying to increase the public infrastructure of Bolivia (Some of which Morales has accepted). There has also recently been financial backing from the world bank to increase the Bolivian school systems, that have been helping more and more students be able to feel comfortable and increase the quality of education.


Lots of people who are not physically going to Bolivia are working here to help the process too. Sending money, donating to groups, sponsoring children, collecting and sending materials and supplies are all things being done by people in the U.S. and around the world to help Bolivians out. Also even though all the difficulties and troubles, the Bolivian nation has developed strongly culturally and has actually ranked high on some “happiest countries” statistics.


Despite the poor economic standings Bolivians go on living but as with any relatively foreign culture, in a different way. There are some small things that it might be easier for an American to adjust or relate to, things that would be could be perceived as an inconvenience more than anything. Conditions that force either the purchase or boiling of the drinking water, is easily comparable to Scattergood with the reverse osmosis filter for the well water and big five gallon jugs. Its just something that might take a little to get used to. There are other things though that may not be as easy to acclimate to. Families in poverty, making less in a year than what some in America spend on week long vacations. The riches of Bolivia lies in the culture rather than the economics. The idea of money, wealth, and material goods is so closely related to status in the united states that it is easy to lose track of what it actually means to prosper.


1http://www.boliviaweekly.com/bolivian-annual-income-comparison-2005-2009/2312/

2http://www.tradingeconomics.com/bolivia/unemployment-rate

3http://www.worldvision.org/our-impact/country-profiles/bolivia

4http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-12/20/content_17185657.htm