In this month of May, our team members Andrés González and Clara Pérez-Andújar visited the city of La Paz in Bolivia, as part of the final phase of our consulting with the Vice Ministry, with the objective of doing a preliminary presentation of our results of the National Integrated Rural Electrification Plan in the country.

Our team’s goal was to propose a route of electrification that would accelerate the country’s current efforts to connect their rural citizens, specified in their Rural Electrification Programs (PER). Up until now, the different isolated communities would request the connection to electrity through their municipality, which in turn transfered these petitions to the national electrification company, ENDE. Our work will allow these communities to know how long it will take them to obtain access, and the government will be able to propose intermediate solutions in the meantime.

Our meetings those days involved the Vice Ministry of Bolivia, expert technicians from ENDE and other interested parties. We obtained a very valuable feedback, which helped us tweak our Rural Electrification Plan to be as close to the bolivian reality as possible and to adapt to the implementation needs that the tecnicians will have once they execute it. The Government showed great interest and active collaboration, transmitting their wish to adopt our plan, learn about it in depth and present it to the rest of the stakeholders.

In two weeks time, our team will go back to La Paz to present the final results of the Integrated Rural Electrification Plan for Bolivia, through a series of workshops with the involved stakeholders.