Brazil

This report analyzes the dynamics of violent crime in Brazil. What factors are driving the overall crime decline in Brazil? Why is violent crime declining in some states... Show More + while it is increasing in others? What types of interventions could help to reduce youth violence? These are the questions that motivate this report. Understanding what has gone right to bring crime down during the past 10 years is crucial to tackling the challenges posed by the new decade. The purpose of this report is to enhance that understanding. To do so, we examine the determinants of the crime shift at the national level, review the experience of the high-performing states, and generate new evidence on the impact of education policies on youth violence prevention. This report is organized in four chapters. Chapter one sets the stage for the issues covered in the report. Chapter two estimates the correlation of the change in crime in Brazil and across regions and states. Chapter three reviews the evidence on the policies implemented to reduce crime and violence in Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro. Chapter four presents findings on the impact of school enrollment on youth crime and violence prevention. The last section summarizes key lessons. Show Less -

Belo Horizonte, the third largest city in Brazil, has made early education a priority in an effort to improve the competitiveness of its workforce in the long term and... Show More + support the national government's policy goals. With support from International Finance Corporation (IFC), it turned to private sector funding and expertise to expand and strengthen its preschool and primary school system. The concession Brazil's first public-private partnership in the education sector was awarded in July 2012. The municipality appointed IFC as lead advisor to explore how private sector participation could help advance Belo Horizonte's early education system, and what mechanism could be used to do so. After conducting a detailed feasibility study, IFC recommended that the municipality enter into a public-private partnership (PPP) with a private-sector firm to address the shortage of preschools and primary schools. Expert consultants managed by IFC developed solutions to financial, technical and legal issues. These solutions were built into a transaction structure made available for public comments and inputs by potential investors. IFC helped draft tender documents, organize a public hearing, and manage the bidding process. Show Less -

As a means to reduce delays in public works implementation, a number of Brazilian states have recently reformed their procurement rules allowing contractor price proposals... Show More + to be assessed before the technical evaluation of submitted bids is undertaken (in a procedure known as inversao das fases). In order to evaluate the effects of such reform, this paper adopts a difference-in-differences methodology to compare the procurement performance of Sao Paulo state (a reformer state) and Minas Gerais' (a non-reformer state) largest water and sewage utility along three efficiency dimensions: (i) procurement process duration; (ii) likelihood of complaint resolution litigation; and (iii) prices paid to contractors. The analysis finds that the reform is associated with a 24 day reduction in the duration of procurement processes for large projects and a 7 percentage point drop in the likelihood of court challenges irrespective of project size. Although both effects are economically important, only the latter is statistical significant. Finally, the paper finds no evidence of an effect of the procurement reform on prices paid. Show Less -

This report summarizes the past 10 years (1998-2008) of World Bank engagement at the state level in four selected large federal countries: Brazil, India, Nigeria, and... Show More + the Russian Federation. The report identifies lessons and good practice examples that warrant further examination and wider dissemination. First, the study confirms the desirability of continued selective lending in a few focus states. The Bank's engagement with progressive, reformist states has added value and has been highly appreciated, but to enhance the poverty impact of state-level interventions, greater weight should be given to the needs of the poorest states by balancing states' propensity to reform and the concentration of poverty within them. Experience shows that it has been possible to achieve results in some of the poorer, low-capacity states through persistent work with committed state counterparts and partnerships with other donors. Second, continued focus on public finance management appears sound, irrespective of whether engagement is confined to this area or serves as an entry point for broader engagement. Third, there is considerable scope for greater impact from knowledge transfer and expanded knowledge services. Show Less -

This note aims at providing feedback on Brazil's successful experience in using performance based contracts in the rehabilitation and maintenance of the road networks.... Show More + Since its introduction in the early 2000's, the use of this contract management model has progressively spread to reach, as of today, one third of the federal network and more than 10 percent of the states' networks, and expectations are for higher figures in the short run. The note highlights the context which led to the introduction of these contracts in the road sector and the strategic orientations adopted in their structuring. The model was notably expected to bring rationalization, accountability and credibility to the sector at a moment when road maintenance, though a crucial issue when considering the networks' characteristics and conditions, was not given sufficient consideration by the road administrations. The note then provides an evaluation of the positive achievements resulting from these contracts. The evaluation, comparing objectively performance based contracts to the traditional input-admeasurements approach, shows that these contracts brought an overall improved efficiency to the sector which translated to better road conditions at lower costs for the governments and reduced management burdens on the administrations. Finally, the note provides insights, gained from ten years of continuous learning, on the main lessons learnt, and perspectives on desirable evolutions in the future, while a balanced share of responsibilities and initiatives between the public and the private sectors is essential, strengthened administrations, fully accountable for preserving public interests, remain key to success; better articulating contract duration and rehabilitation works service life, which would lead to extended contract duration, is also one of the possible orientations for future performance-based contracts in Brazil. Show Less -

This country level trade brief summarizes insights from the world trade indicators database as well as analyzes national impacts and responses to the food crisis and... Show More + global recession. The trade at a glance tables for Brazil provide a snapshot of key aspects of trade policy and performance. Show Less -

This country level trade brief summarizes insights from the world trade indicators database as well as analyzes national impacts and responses to the food crisis and... Show More + global recession. The trade at a glance tables for Brazil provide a snapshot of key aspects of trade policy and performance. Show Less -

Corruption imposes substantial economic costs, yet there is little evidence on the success of anti-corruption campaigns. The author study the 1992 impeachment of president... Show More + Collor in Brazil to evaluate its impact on politically connected companies both in the short and long-term. Using an event study methodology, the author establishes the short-run effect: family connected firms on average lose 2 to 9 percentage points of their value on dates when information damaging to the impeached president is released. However, this decline is reversed entirely within one year. The author concludes that the impeachment had limited success in reducing corruption in Brazil. Show Less -

By 2003-4, the accumulated burdens of slow growth and debt overhang weighed heavily on Brazil's state governments. The State of Ceará was no exception. Discretionary... Show More + expenditures were frequently cut to a third of their budgeted amounts, and funding had dried up for priority programs and even essential services. The state's development agenda was shelved as Ceará struggled to survive. An innovative Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp) variation has been approved that opens up numerous new possibilities to strengthen the design of SWAps and other loans in order to enhance loan impact. There is significant interest in Brazil and elsewhere in replicating the Ceará SWAPL. Project and reform implementation appear to be on track. Perhaps the most important conclusion is to understand that the Bank is sufficiently flexible to allow enterprising staff and clients to design the sorts of operations that will optimize development impact. Show Less -