Does Infrastructure Reform Work for the Poor? A Case Study on the Cities of La Paz and El Alto in Bolivia
From 1994 onward, Bolivia undertook a major reform of its infrastructure sectors. The authors examine the impact of the reforms from the perspective of poor households in the adjacent cities of La Paz and El Alto, particularly in terms of access to...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2003/12/2872956/infrastructure-reform-work-poor-case-study-cities-la-paz-el-alto-bolivia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17432 |
| Summary: | From 1994 onward, Bolivia undertook a
major reform of its infrastructure sectors. The authors
examine the impact of the reforms from the perspective of
poor households in the adjacent cities of La Paz and El
Alto, particularly in terms of access to services. Different
policies adopted across the infrastructure sectors led to
diverging outcomes. In the water and sewerage sector, the
concessionaire was placed under legal obligation to meet
connection targets in low income neighborhoods, while
customers were given the facility to spread payment of
connection charges over a two year period and opt for a
lower cost "condominial connection." As a result
the rate of expansion of services increased by 70 percent
relative to the pre-reform period. In the telecommunications
sector, fixed and cellular services tell very different
stories. On the one hand, fixed line services remained
inaccessible to the poor due to the membership fee of
US$1,500 charged by the cooperative, or the alternative
nonmember option of paying a US$23 monthly rental fee. On
the other hand, cellular coverage increased tenfold from
1996-99 as the advent of competition led to huge reductions
both in connection and calling charges, while the
introduction of prepayment cards greatly facilitated the
control of expenditure The expansion that took place did not
bypass the poor. While first quintile households saw barely
any improvement in access to utility services in the period
leading up to the 1994 reforms, in the five years that
followed coverage rates for these households rose by more
than 20 percentage points for water and sewerage, and more
than 10 percentage points for electricity and telephones.
Overall, 80 percent of new water and sewerage connections
and 65 percent of new electricity and telephone connections
went to residents in the poorest neighborhoods of La Paz and
El Alto. |
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