Noticias

The year 2025 marks a major milestone for Save the Children: 40 years of presence in Bolivia. This year’s motto, “walking hand in hand with Bolivian children,” underscores a simple but powerful truth: despite changes over time in staff, ways of working, donors, partnerships, and political and institutional contexts, one constant thread has defined our work. We have been—and remain—committed to standing alongside Bolivian children and adolescents.

We did so in the 1980s, as recalled by one of Save the Children Bolivia’s longest-serving colleagues interviewed by the communications team, when the organization began working in a remote rural area of the department of La Paz to address severe child malnutrition and poverty.

We did so through three cycles of child sponsorship programmes: first in La Paz (1980s and 1990s), then in Oruro (early 2000s), and currently in Cochabamba.

We have continued this commitment through programmatic action in key thematic areas such as child protection, health, education, and the fight against child poverty, delivering both development projects and humanitarian responses—across the Andes, the Amazon, and the ecologically diverse valley regions. Recent legislative and public policy achievements highlighted in this bulletin—some of which have gained global visibility—provide clear evidence, to use MERA terminology, of our strategic positioning within the Bolivian context and within the national child rights agenda.

We will continue along this path through our localization strategy. Save the Children Bolivia is already fully aligned with the organization’s localization approach across country offices. This is highlighted in the interview with Regional Office Director Cristina García, who congratulates the Bolivia office for working “very closely with partners and with local and national public institutions,” and for actively “transferring methodologies, ways of working, and knowledge to local and national partners to ensure sustainability.”

Challenges, however, remain significant.

• Bolivian children face the risk of being deeply affected by an ongoing economic crisis. Violence continues to disproportionately impact girls and adolescents; adolescent pregnancy remains a serious concern; and the child protection system still struggles to adequately address long-standing challenges such as sexual violence and child marriage and early unions, as well as emerging threats like online violence. Climate change is increasingly manifesting through floods, wildfires, droughts, and other extreme events, severely affecting children’s access to fundamental rights such as education, health, and protection. Early childhood, in particular, requires greater attention and investment.
• At the same time, the organization must diversify its funding base and identify new donors to respond effectively to the rights violations affecting children and adolescents in Bolivia. Save the Children Bolivia also seeks innovative fundraising approaches and new global allies to support the country office’s work.

The final message is a clear call to action: in the face of growing challenges, we need more collaboration, more innovation, and greater social investment. Only by joining forces with partners, institutions, and communities can we ensure that the progress achieved endures—and that the next chapter for children in Bolivia is written with dignity, opportunity, and the chance for every child to reach their full potential.