What countries built

The move, and what it needed

Bolivia linked a modest cash incentive to a sequence of prenatal, delivery and child-health checks, then used a nationwide bank network and mobile intersectoral brigades to move the programme beyond urban clinics and into Indigenous territories.

Preconditions

• A beneficiary and health-record system able to verify visits without excluding people with incomplete documentation
• Payment institutions and mobile teams that can reach remote and Indigenous communities
• Primary-care facilities with enough staff and supplies for the conditions to mean more than a paperwork exercise

Where it travelled: Conditional health transfers travel best when the payment rail and the service network are designed together. Bolivia's case makes the last-mile condition visible: national coverage is a logistics problem as much as a budget line.

The move, and what it needed

Bolivia converted a universal old-age entitlement into a predictable non-contributory payment, administered through the long-term social-security system and financed as a standing national obligation rather than a short project.

Preconditions

• A population register and identity process that can establish age and prevent duplicate payments
• A fiscal transfer and payment network that reaches older people outside contributory employment
• Rules that protect payment continuity while the financing base and population structure change

Where it travelled: Social pensions travel where informal work leaves many people outside contributory schemes. Bolivia shows the reach a standing entitlement can create, while leaving the financing and adequacy questions explicit.

The move, and what it needed

Bolivia treated steep urban mobility as a network problem: a state company linked multiple cable-car lines, integrated fares and stations and expanded service incrementally rather than waiting for a single road corridor to solve access across La Paz and El Alto.

Preconditions

• A public authority able to coordinate land, stations, safety regulation and municipal transport connections
• Capital financing and specialist operations staff for a high-altitude cable system
• A fare and subsidy policy that can keep the network usable while it builds ridership and covers maintenance

Where it travelled: Cable transit travels where topography makes roads expensive, but Mi Teleférico makes the operating bargain visible: network scale can be delivered, yet financial break-even still depends on ridership, fares and continuing public support.

The move, and what it needed

Bolivia pursued a state-led value chain from brine extraction to industrial lithium carbonate, retaining control of the resource and plant while learning that evaporation chemistry, water treatment and process reliability—not only mine ownership—set the usable production ceiling.

Preconditions

• Long-horizon public finance and technical institutions able to carry a complex chemical process from pilot to industrial scale
• Reliable water, evaporation and quality-control systems in a fragile salt-flat environment
• Independent engineering feedback and contracting discipline strong enough to surface underperformance before capacity claims harden into policy

Where it travelled: Resource-processing projects travel poorly when geological ownership is mistaken for industrial capability. Bolivia's shortfall is useful benchmark evidence because it separates strategic ambition from demonstrated, repeatable throughput.