Brazil

Brazil suffers from a range of different pollution problems which cause real economic damage in terms of human health, quality of life, and ecological losses. The most... Show More + serious problems are: i) lack of safe water supply and/or lack of safe sewage removal at the household and community level; ii) particulate air pollution in the Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro; iii) Surface water pollution in urban areas; iv) lack of collection of solid waste and improper solid waste disposal; and v) severe localized pollution. After 20 years of active pollution management, many problems still remain unresolved. The common problems of the management system are: a) lack of priority setting and cost-effective strategies; b) use of an outdated pollution management instruments; c) no sectoral integration of pollution management; d) limited and inconsistent enforcement; and e) excessive reliance on Government budgets. This report recommends: 1) a narrow prioritization of the pollution problems. 2) A modernization of instruments of pollution control. 3) Improved accountability of environmental institutions. 4) Establishment of framework for attracting more private financing for implementing cost-effective strategies. Show Less -

Tight money and a loose fiscal stance have led to growing pressures in Brazil. Substantial foreign exchange reserves, a credible privatization program and record of... Show More + policy management so far make the risks manageable in the short to medium term. But these risks could be further reduced by changing the policy mix. High real interest rates, a strong exchange rate and a weak fiscal stance have undesirable consequences, beyond the growth of indebtedness. Sustained fiscal adjustment is the main policy change needed; this should take the form of reduced government spending, specifically, payroll expenses (public wages and pensions). Efforts should focus on reducing public-private differences. Sustainably reducing payroll spending mainly implies lowering salaries, pensions, and employment and delinking pensions from salary adjustments, enforcing working hour regulations, reducing salaries, and keeping salary increases small. Separation programs for public administration should be redesigned and expanded while separation programs for public enterprises can be made less generous. Long-term fiscal sustainability requires constitutional reform. Measures to reduce disparities between the public and private sector pensions are the most beneficial over the longer term from fiscal, efficiency, and equity viewpoints. Proposed constitutional changes are being monitored as a sign of the government's commitment to fiscal adjustment. Show Less -

With railway restructuring and privatization and other sector reforms begun or being considered, this report overviews the remaining public policy reforms needed to... Show More + foster an efficient, multimodal freight transport system in Brazil. The report examines critical issues likely to influence private investments in Brazil's transport infrastructure and in multimodal operations. It assesses the current logistics costs for a sample of commodities and relates these costs to constraints on single and multimodal transport options available to commodity producers; it examines the progress achieved in reforming the regulatory environment and notes implications for multimodal opportunities; it highlights major regulatory issues in context; and it offers recommendations to address them, based on international experience and best practices. The report is organized as follows: Chapter 2 reviews demand-side issues and illustrates the potential size and scope of multimodal markets. It assesses the limited evidence available on modal choices and distances covered by the various modes, identifying the inconsistencies that suggest demand for a different modal choice. Chapter 3 diagnoses the supply-side situation. It focuses on policy issues in each sub-sector (rail, road, waterways, seaports), distinguishing between regulatory issues and logistics factors that are directly or indirectly influenced by government action. Chapter 4 suggests a strategy to achieve needed changes in current policy. Show Less -

This report is based on a World Bank Gas Sector mission carried out in July 1993. Its purpose is to identify and make recommendations on the issues concerning gas sector... Show More + regulation and fuels pricing in Brazil. The beginning of the report is an overview of the energy sector in Brazil. The second section looks at natural gas supply and demand. The pricing of gas and competing fuels, mainly petroleum, composes the third section. The final section looks at energy sector institutions and regulations, and concludes with recommendations for a future gas regulatory system. Show Less -

The objective of this report is to assist the Government of the State of Rio de Janeiro in the development and implementation of more effective pollution management... Show More + policies. This report addresses pollution in the region from most sectors, including industry, transport, and sanitation. Using systematic economic cross-sectoral analysis and the limited available information the report develops cost effective strategies for tackling priority problems and outlining an overall environmental management strategy. The report consists of two volumes. Volume 1 is the Policy Report which contains a summary of the most important policy recommendations. Volume 2 is the Technical Report which provides the analytical backup to the Policy Report and contains detailed recommendations for the implementation of the proposed strategy. Show Less -

The indebtedness of the Brazilian states has reached crisis proportions. Total debt now exceeds $100 billion, and states are not servicing roughly one-half of this.... Show More + Since 1993, the growth of debt has accelerated. The federal government now holds most of the states' contractual debt, and finances it through federal bonds, and deposits at federal banks. Unless the growth of the debt is halted, the federal government will be forced to finance it by reducing its own spending, raising taxes, or resorting to inflationary financing, threatening the Plano Real. The way in which the state debt problem manifests itself differs from state to state. Some states have current debt service obligations which they cannot meet or finance, and have a major liquidity crisis on their hands. Others have rescheduled their obligations with the federal government, but will confront increases when grace periods expire this year. Still others are faced with large short term obligations in the form of arrears. In each of these instances, expenditures other than debt service are under enormous strain. The state debt problem is today too large for the old type of remedy: negotiations with the federal government. A federal bail-out would undermine the fiscal discipline that is the cornerstone of the Plano Real. Besides not being feasible, it would also not be desirable. States must be held accountable for public expenditures and financial management. Instead, this report recommends a three step approach. First, a package of measures is needed (involving both federal and selected state governments) to slow the current explosive growth of state debt. Second, states should adopt reform and modernization programs, led by determined efforts at the federal level to remove constraints (on personnel management, for example) that impede states' ability to manage their affairs. Third, the federal government must improve its ability to assess state creditworthiness, until such time as private long term financing is available to states. Show Less -

The authors estimate that about 24 million Brazilians, 17.4 percent of the population fell below the poverty line in 1990. Measures of poverty encompass many dimensions... Show More + including low income, hunger, and poor health, just to name a few. Poverty in Brazil today is commanding more attention as President Cardoso has made social justice a priority for the administration. The concern lies in the fact that during the 1980s the number of poor rose by about 1 million and became more visible because that increase took place in urban areas. The concern also lies in the fact that mechanisms that enabled Brazil to reduce poverty in the 1960s and 1970s, ie expanding formal sector employment, rising wages, migration to the large cities of the Southeast, were reversed in the 1980s. All this in mind, it is still noted that the level of poverty in Brazil is well above the norm for a middle-income country, even so the authors estimate that for a cost of less than 1 percent of the GDP a government could improve significantly the welfare of the poor. The authors suggest policies which would increase levels of education, thus decreasing population growth and illiteracy among the poorest groups. Also suggested are employment programs for both rural and urban areas, pointing out the need for off-season employment for rural workers, as well as greater opportunity for land ownership. For urban areas, an expansion of the formal sector is suggested. Finally the authors cite the need for stronger social safety net programs, ie an increase in social program spending and social security benefits to increase levels of health, education and decrease risk in unemployment situations. Show Less -

Brazil is currently implementing a forceful stabilization program amidst encouraging indications of initial success. Until this program began, Brazil's attempts at securing... Show More + price stability were in marked contrast to recent successes which other countries in the world have had. Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Israel, Mexico, Nicaragua and Poland have managed to stabilize during this period. The central issue addressed in this report is how to consolidate the recent fall in inflation such that Brazil enjoys a sustained period of low inflation accompanied by renewed growth. In this context, the report places particular emphasis on fiscal reforms and other structural reforms necessary to raise economic efficiency. Show Less -

This report is about agriculture in Brazil, the natural resources of Brazil, and the people who live in rural Brazil. It surveys and analyses the policies that the... Show More + government has adopted towards this interactive complex. And it suggests modifications in those policies that would better achieve the goals that the Government wishes to achieve. These goals are: (a) virgorous growth in agriculture; (b) reduction in rural poverty; and (c) sustainable use of natural resources. Brazil has undertaken major institutional and economic reforms over the last few years, many in agriculture and natural resource management. But the process is incomplete and the hard-won gains are in danger of reversal if reforms are not completed. Further, a number of policies put in place in the past have outlived their usefulness or are having unintended side effects that are costly to agricultural growth and rural development. In other cases the type of intervention seems appropriate. This report documents a large number of interventions used by the government to manage agriculture, rural development and natural resource use. It comments on the appropriateness of each and, where appropriate, suggests alternatives. The broad view taken by the report allows it to identify outcomes that cut across the different goals of policy so that interaction between policies and concerns that are systemic can be identified. Show Less -

Based on an assessment of the private sector's role in five social service areas (education, health, family planning, child care and social security), Brazil's reliance... Show More + on the private market to deliver, and in some cases finance, social services is much greater than in other developing countries. However, the division of responsibility between the public and private sectors is not always sufficient, especially in the resource-intensive programs in education, health and social security. The constraints to private sector expansion in the social sectors in Brazil include: a) insufficient incentives to the private sector to take on responsibility for providing private goods such as primary and secondary education, and private pension plans; b) lack of cost recovery for public services, leaving the private services with highly uncompetitive prices; c) lack of access to capital for students and patients; d) inadequate subsidies and tax credits to stimulate private activity; and e) inadequate use of matching grants to leverage community and individual resources. The key recommendations of the study are to concentrate government's funding on public goods, to let the market dominate in financing and producing private goods, and to shift entrepreneurial energies from rent-seeking redistributive activities through the public sector toward productivity-enhancing activities in the private sector. Strategies to minimize political costs entail: 1) restricting new services to those that meet a strict public good definition, since it is easier to start services than to cut off services already provided; 2) exempting the current cohort of beneficiaries from reduced benefits or from fees or other efforts at cost recovery; and 3) efforts to educate middle and higher income groups regarding the necessity of shifts in the targeting and financing of services. Show Less -