Peru

Publication Date: July 9, 2022

Peru Digital Ecosystem Country Assessment (DECA)

The Peru Digital Ecosystem Country Assessment (DECA) outlines the key aspects of Peru’s digital ecosystem and provides 10 recommendations for the international development community to create a more inclusive, safe, and enabling environment to achieve development outcomes in Peru.

Resource Type: Country Assessment

Country: Peru

Sector: Cross-Cutting

Peru’s digital ecosystem is one of many contrasts. While it was one of the first countries in Latin America to establish a permanent connection to the internet in the early 1990s, bringing connectivity to Peruvians in rural and Amazonian regions remains a challenge. Policy implementation capacity gaps and administration changes slow efforts to remedy digital divides and to ensure important safeguards are in place. Civil society organizations’ (CSO’s) support for the protection of digital rights is fragmented and small-scale due to a lack of technical capacity and resources. While Peru was one of the first in the region to enact an electronic money law in 2013, the marketplaces for digital financial services, e-commerce, and digital talent are Lima-centric and dominated by commercial banks.

The Peru DECA took place between mid-July 2021 and February 2022. It included desk research, consultations with USAID/Peru, and 8 weeks of virtual key informant interviews, which included 9 focus group discussions with USAID Peru project participants and 63 interviews with stakeholders from civil society, academia, the private and public sectors, international development organizations, and USAID/Peru technical offices.

The DECA was guided by USAID/Peru’s 2020-2025 Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS), which includes three development objectives:

1. Expanding economic and social development in post-eradication regions to sustain coca reductions.
2. Increasing public integrity to reduce corruption.
3. Strengthening sustainable environment and natural resource management to expand economic and social benefits.

Pillar 1: Digital Infrastructure and Adoption

• A lack of clarity around spectrum auctions has delayed 5G Deployment.
• High satellite costs in the Amazon and rural areas pose economic hurdles for telecom operators resulting in coverage gaps. The national telecommunications program, PRONATEL, and rural mobile infrastructure operators (OIMRs) are initiating promising alternatives to cover connectivity gaps.
• Past government digital literacy initiatives have focused on providing tools without any resources on how to use the tools. Aprendo en Casa (MinEdu’s distance learning platform) has been more holistic in providing classes and resources to students, teachers, and parents in many parts of Peru.

Pillar 2: Digital Society, Rights, and Governance

• There is tension between the need to regulate the internet and the obligation to protect digital rights.
• A lack of multi-stakeholder engagement in internet governance limits transparency and accountability in policy making and implementation.
• Digital rights CSOs lack resource, financial and technical capacity, which prevents successful grassroots advocacy.
• SEGDI, an office within the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, will have an increasingly important role in the development of digital public policies.

Pillar 3: Digital Economy

• Weak policy implementation and coordination have historically hampered the efficient translation of financial inclusion policy into practice, although early signs point to a shift in this trend.
• The marketplaces for digital financial services, e-commerce, and digital talent are largely Lima-centric and beholden to traditional frameworks.
• Entrepreneurial activity is primarily concentrated in the informal sector, which makes it challenging to leverage technology.