Brazil

The Challenges and the Changes

In Brazil the key issue is inequality between rich and poor people based on race, disability and gender.

• 1% of landowners own half the land!
• Brazil has the tenth largest economy in the world but ranks only 63rd on the Human Development Index.

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Poverty

Challenges

• It is estimated that 45 million people in Brazil live in conditions of poverty
• Over 14 million people are illiterate. Being unable to read and write, they are unaware of their rights.
• There are 7 million street children who work and live on the streets of major cities. These children are poor and at risk from violence, abuse, drugs, crime and murder
• There are lots of poor people who live in rural Brazil, with little land to live on and farm in order to support themselves and their families. Many end up losing their incomes and homes so are forced to move to the cities
• The big cities have a shortage of houses and jobs, sanitation is poor and poverty is widespread. Major cities like Rio, Recife and São Paulo are dotted with ‘favelas’ (shanty towns) - in São Paulo alone, approximately 830,000 people live in favelas
• 15% of the population is disabled (2000 Census) but very few organisations work with disabled people and services provided are poor

Changes

The government has introduced national campaigns to raise public awareness of the vast inequality and the MDGs. Since 2003, the Brazilian government has been running public campaigns under a single message – Nos Podemos – ‘8 ways to change the world. Yes we can’.

The campaign has been very creative .

• T he largest supermarket chain in Brazil called Grupo Pao de Acucar (similar to Tesco) has handed out over 1.8 billion shopping bags to customers with the Nos Podemos message on showing the 8 MDg icons!
• One of the big banks in Brazil has displayed the ‘Nos Podemos’ slogan on its 38,500 cash machines
• Adverts have been run on MTV (Brazil)
• During Carnival 2005, 4,500 samba dancers dressed in outfits themed on the Millennium Development Goals and received press coverage around the world!

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The Brazilian government has tackled hunger which threatens over 44 million people through:

• ‘Fome Zero’ (Zero Hunger) launched in 2003 is the biggest initiative from the Brazilian government to combat hunger in Brazil. The programme registers families who are suffering from malnutrition and unemployment and provides these people with either food or food tickets.
• ‘Bolsa Familia Program’ (BFP) provides ‘conditional cash transfers’ to very poor families. The conditions are that money is used for things like school attendance and vaccines against diseases. The project currently covers 8 million families (about 34 million people).
• creation of low priced restaurants and supporting subsistence farming

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A Millennium Development Goal monitoring report in Brazil has shown Brazil is close to achieving Goal 1. Brazil has achieved some good results in improving living conditions associated with poverty:

• Infant mortality has declined from around 50 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 33 per 1,000 live births in 2003 (that’s 34%).
• Brazilians with access to an improved water source has increased from 83% of the population in 1990 to 89% of the population in 2003.

However the above is based on national averages and for all the poor to benefit the government needs to tackle:

• Severe regional inequalities between the poor North East and the richer South East
• Many black and mulatto people are amongst the poorest
• The number of unemployed young people is increasing

Brazil now seems likely to achieve Goal 1 but what does Brazil still need to do to create a fairer society for all Brazilians

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Education

Changes

Children enrolled in school had increased to 89% by 2003. Brazil is on target to achieve Goal 2 by 2015:

Brazil now seems likely to achieve Goal 2 but what does Brazil still need to do to give all its children a proper and full education?

Read the Challenges below and decide

Challenges

However this will not guarantee quality of education for all children. According to 2001 data:

 

• 59% of pupils at the end of primary school had not developed basic reading skills
• 52% were severely deficient in maths
• Secondary school attendance rates are far lower than primary school and illiteracy amongst 15 – 24 year-olds still affects more than 1 million people in Brazil.
• Although 81% of 15-17 year-olds stated that they were attending school, only 40% were in secondary education, most had missed years of school to go to work

The attendance of young whites aged 15 – 17 in secondary education is double the attendance of young blacks and mulattos.

 

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