Figure 3.5
Access to Electricity in Large, Medium Cities and in Rural
Areas in 1997 and 1999, by Four Lowest Income Deciles (%)
□ 1997 □1999
Source: World Bank
In graph 3.5 above, large cities refer to the capitals of all 9 departments plus the city of El Alto,
adjacent to La Paz. Medium cities comprise smaller cities different from the 10 largest. Income
groups are divided in deciles - the results for the four lowest income deciles are presented above,
where 1 represents lowest and 4 highest among the income groups presented.
The improvement in access in large and medium cities is apparent. For all income deciles there
are substantial gains between 1997 and 1999. The same cannot be said about rural areas where
there is a worsening in coverage for the two lowest income groups - 1 and 2 - a slight
improvement in decile 3 and no change in coverage for decile 4. It is worth noting that the data
presented here occurs during the so called “regulation period“ (no comparable data has been
compiled for other years), time in which one would have expected increasing coverage
throughout, regardless of region of the country. The fact that coverage in rural areas declines for
the poorest groups of people confirms previous analysis presented in this document in the sense
that transformation of the industry did not produce - in rural areas - the positive impacts many
people had expected.
Prices
As for prices (tariffs), the concentration in this paper is in distribution prices - and more
specifically, residential (household) prices - since the main interest lies in what the final
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