Bolivia’s first human development report on gender seeks to describe women in Bolivia as active agents rather than beneficiaries of aid. The focus is therefore on the need to enhance women’s political capacity and ability to participate in policy deliberations. It argues that public policies must be participative, pluralistic and democratic and must take into account gender and other social inequalities. The report is divided into two sections. The first maps out the development of gender concerns within Bolivia’s human development reports of 1998, 2000 and 2002. The second part compares the situation in Bolivia with that of the rest of the world and evaluates the country’s national, regional and local gender policies. The report concludes that there have been many advances made in women’s political participation, education and the elimination of gender-based violence. Remaining challenges include persistence of cultural constraints to changing patriarchal value systems, continued income inequality and the differences in levels of progress between different groups of women according to other social inequalities.