Adhemar Poma, Advisor in Education for Inclusion in SNV Bolivia, explains in the Bolivian Newspaper "El Deber" the correlation between education and competitivenes, as well as between education and economic growth. 
In his own words "The concordance between education and competitiveness is a key factor to reduce poverty in Bolivia".

For more information, please contact Adhemar Poma by email at: apoma@snvworld.org

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A new network for remittances has been launched in Bolivia. With more than 400 payment centers across the country, to reach more than 250.000 Bolivian families receiving remittances.

FIE Bank, Ecofuturo FFP and Síntesis , with the support of SNV in Bolivia and thanks to IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), joined in a triple alliance to create the biggest remittances networks of Bolivia, called “Remesas en Red” (Remittances Network) with more than 400 payment center in urban, semi-urban and mainly rural regions of the country. 

Characteristics of the new Remittances Network:

• Online integration with the main international remittances networks.
• Innovative and original platform 
• Best rural coverage for remittances in Bolivia
• Online, SMS and Call Center alerts to remittances receivers
• Specific payments allowed (for health, education, housing purposes) 
• Low-cost remittances services, safe and easy to access

For more information, please contact, Juan José Espinoza, advisor at SNV in  Bolivia: jespinozadelvillar@snvworld.org

SNV, as member of the Education Working Group, took part in the Conference on the Quality of Bolivian Education last 18-19 August.  Participants included authorities from the Ministry of Education, research institutes, NGOs and representatives of education centers. 

The key note speaker was Dr. Vernor Muñoz, former Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, who focused his presentation on the problems of education worldwide and the current tendencies for its analysis and discussion. Also, he analyzed the link between education, economy and development. 

The Education Working Group (Mesa de Trabajo en Educación -MTE) is an entity focused on the coordination in the education field. Some of its members are: The Netherlands Embassy in Bolivia, SNV, Plan International Inc., Terre des Hommes, CEBIAE, Autapo Foundation, CNC-CEPOS and ICCO. Its main objectives are to create knowledge for mutual learning and support to the education sector of Bolivia.

In few days CNN in Spanish will start filming a story on the Inclusive Business of Delizia, a leading company in the dairy industry of Bolivia. We will inform you of the broadcast date and time shortly.

SNV's  "Accountability Initiative" is a pilot developed in three Departments of Bolivia. In Santa Cruz, for example, SNV worked with the Productive Development Secretariat and SEDAG (Department's Service of Agricultural Development). The implementation of the pilot used tools to collect information on baselines, define impact goals and make sure the data was available and transparent. This data collection permitted to achieve accountability targets and enabled the initiative's beneficiaries to compare the goals which had been set to the results obtained. 

This pilot improved the relationship between the Departments' authorities and the beneficiaries and opened more interactive channels of communication which in turn improved the positive impact of public investment.  Thanks to the success of this initiative SEDAG and SNV will carry on working together in other projects to support the Department's authorities and will continue to improve the living conditions of small producers.