Bolivia is a partner country for German and international Development Cooperation in Latin America, and for three decades has been one of the most important partners for German Technical Cooperation.

Bolivia is a country of topographical and ethnic diversity, sparsely populated with only eight million inhabitants, and characterised by high poverty indicators and an extensive rural exodus.

Since the mid-80s, Bolivia – after decades of military dictatorship – has initiated reforms in popular participation, administrative decentralisation and privatisation of state enterprises, along with reforms of the education and health sectors and the court system. The national poverty reduction strategy was formulated in dialogue with the population.

This strategy is one of the conditions for debt remission in the framework of the debt relief initiative for heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC II). As a result, local communities are scheduled to receive additional funds of ca. US$ 90 million a year for investment up to 2015.

In January 2006, Evo Morales became first member of the indigenous population in Bolivia's history to take over the office of president. This followed the landslide victory of his "Movement Towards Socialism" in the early parliamentary elections held in December. He is seeking to introduce wide-ranging business and political changes geared to the interests of the Indio majority, setting the country on a new course within the framework of a new constituent assembly to be established in mid-2006.

GTZ  concentrates on programmes with different partners and on projects with individual Bolivian institutions in the following priority areas:

• Administrative and judicial reform, civil society
• Sustainable agriculture
• Water supply and waste water disposal.

GTZ has maintained an office in La Paz since 1995, which publishes the monthly magazine Boletín Bolivia.

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• Cooperación técnica alemana en Bolivia. Socio mundial para un futuro común.
  GTZ Bolivia 2007, 29 pages
  sp-cooperacion-tecnica-alemana-en-bolivia.pdf, 6,02 MB (spanisch)