Bolivia

B

Education

Primary education is nominally free and compulsory for children between the ages of 6 and 13. The country’s literacy rate is 90 percent.

In 2006 almost all children of elementary-school age were enrolled in primary schools, but some attended for only a brief time. Only 86 percent of children of secondary-school age attended school. Enrollment in institutions of higher education was 41 percent.

Bolivia has ten universities: in Sucre, La Paz (two), Cochabamba, Llallagua, Oruro, Potosí, Santa Cruz, Tarija, and Trinidad. San Francisco Xavier University (1624), in Sucre, is one of the oldest in the Americas. The University of San Andrés (1830), in La Paz, is the largest university in Bolivia, with a student enrollment of about 37,000.

C

Culture

In dress, language, architecture, and lifestyle, the large Native American population of Bolivia follows many of the ways of its ancestors with some influence by Spanish traditions. Native clothing is colorful and suited to life in high altitudes. In rural areas girls learn to weave at an early age, and woven woolen textiles in bright colors are popular. Women traditionally wear bowler hats, woven shawls, and skirts made of bands of fabric in horizontal tiers. Petticoats are worn beneath the skirts, and layers can be added or removed as needed. The Spanish-speaking population in the cities generally follows Western customs.

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Indigenous and Spanish colonial influences have fused to produce the culture of modern Bolivia. Holidays and religious festivals are celebrated by dancing and festivities. A weeklong carnival, held before Lent in Oruro, is the country’s largest annual celebration. Called La Diablada (Dance of the Devil), it features dancers dressed as angels, devils, and Incas.

Native American traditions are strong in painting, literature, music, dancing, and folklore. Many contemporary painters have been inspired by indigenous art. Spanish influence prevails in music and folk dances of the valleys, while the austere and plaintive native tradition predominates in the highlands. Pre-Columbian and Spanish-colonial instruments are widely used, among them the gigantic panpipes, called sicus or bajones; the native flute, or quena; and the armadillo-shell guitar, or charango. See Latin American Literature; Latin American Music.

La Paz is home to the National Archaeology Museum; the National Art Museum; the Museum of Ethnography and Folklore; the Museum of Precious Pre-Columbian Metals; the Coca Museum; the Museum of Musical Instruments; and the Museum of Andean Textiles. Bolivia’s other museums include the Archaeological Museum in Cochabamba and the Museum of Indigenous Arts in Sucre. Important libraries are the National Library and Archives in Sucre, the Santa Cruz Municipal Library in La Paz, and the libraries of the University of San Andrés in La Paz and San Francisco Xavier University in Sucre.

IV

Economy

Since early colonial times, mining for precious minerals and metal ores has played an important role in Bolivia’s economy. Many of the largest mining operations were nationalized during the 1950s. However, later Bolivian governments encouraged private industrial development and sought foreign investment capital. The state airline, Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano, was sold to private interests in 1993. In 1995 Bolivia began implementing a privatization program in which the government did not sell state-owned companies outright; instead, half of the company’s shares and management control were awarded to investors who agreed to invest in the company for several years rather than pay cash to the government. The remaining shares were to be divided among Bolivia’s adult population and held in retirement accounts as a new private pension system. Despite these efforts to deflect charges that Bolivia was “selling out” its resources to foreigners, the privatization efforts drew sustained criticism and prompted serious labor strife.

Many farmers in rural areas of Bolivia depend on the production of coca for a living. In South America, the leaves of the coca plant are dried and chewed as a stimulant. Coca leaves also yield the drug cocaine. To halt traffic in cocaine, the United States government has pressured Bolivia to stop farmers from growing coca. The Bolivian government has entered into agreements with the United States to restrict coca production in return for U.S. economic assistance. These agreements either do not adequately compensate coca growers or else ask them to grow crops for which their land is unsuited. Not surprisingly, Bolivia’s coca growers object.

Bolivia’s estimated gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007 was $13.1 billion. GDP is a measure of the value of all goods and services a country produces. Budget figures for 2007 showed revenues of $3.1 billion and expenditures of $2.9 billion.

A

Agriculture, Fishing, and Forestry

Bolivia has little land suitable for agriculture, because mountains, forests, and swamps spread over so much of the country. Many of the Bolivians who farm engage in subsistence agriculture on the Altiplano and live at or below the poverty line. Agriculture employed 5 percent of the labor force and, along with fishing and forestry, accounted for 13 percent of the GDP in 2007.

Bolivia’s agriculture suffers from antiquated farming methods and inadequate transportation. Although the country is self-sufficient in the production of sugar, rice, and meat, it must still import certain foodstuffs. The chief Bolivian crops are soybeans, sugar cane, potatoes, cassava, bananas, maize, rice, plantains, and citrus fruits. Farming with modern methods is increasing in the eastern plains near the city of Santa Cruz. Fishing is a relatively unimportant industry in landlocked Bolivia.

B

Mining, Manufacture, and Trade

Mining is a major industry in Bolivia, providing a large share of the country’s export earnings. Bolivia’s income from mining depends on prices in world markets. Bolivia was one of the world's leading producers of tin through most of the 20th century, but tin is now produced more cheaply in other countries, and Bolivia’s tin production has declined as a result. By the end of the 20th century, increased production of other minerals—gold, silver, and zinc, in particular—offset the decline in income from tin. Other mineral resources include lead, antimony, tungsten, iron, and lithium. However, protests including legal battles delayed government plans to open these deposits to private investors.

Petroleum and natural gas production increased in importance in the 1960s and early 1970s; by the early 1990s Bolivia was self-sufficient in petroleum and was exporting significant amounts of natural gas to Argentina. In the late 1990s a pipeline was built to supply natural gas to Brazil.

The refining of petroleum and the processing of food products (including beverages) and cement are Bolivia’s major manufacturing industries. Smaller industries include leather working, tobacco processing, and the manufacture of chemicals, textiles, paper, furniture, glass, explosives, and matches. La Paz and Santa Cruz are manufacturing centers as well as centers of domestic trade. In 2007 industry, which includes mining, manufacturing, and construction, accounted for 36 percent of the GDP. Industry employed 28 percent of the workers.

Although Bolivia long depended on mineral exports, declining tin exports and increased production of petroleum and natural gas changed the country’s economy during the 1980s. By the year 2000, natural gas accounted for nearly 20 percent of export earnings while metals provided close to 15 percent. Animal feed was another important export. Bolivia’s imports consist mainly of machinery, motor vehicles, electric equipment, and manufactured goods. Bolivia consistently has a trade deficit. In 2007 imports totaled $3.4 billion, and exports earned $4.5 billion.

The principal purchasers of Bolivia’s exports are Brazil, the United States, Colombia, the United Kingdom, Venezuela, Peru, and Argentina. Chief suppliers of imports are the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru. Ties with partners in the Andean Community are also important to Bolivia’s trade; these partners include Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Founded in 1969, the group works toward common policies on energy, tariff reduction, industrial and agricultural development, political cooperation, improved internal and international trade, and the creation of a common market. Bolivia is also a member of the Latin American Integration Association (LAIA), an organization with many of the same goals as the Andean Group, but on a wider scale. In 1996 Bolivia joined the Southern Cone Common Market (known by its Spanish acronym, MERCOSUR), a trade group dedicated to lowering tariffs and removing other trade barriers among its member nations. MERCOSUR—which also includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay—covered a market of more than 190 million people in 1995, making it the world’s fourth-largest free trade group.

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