Brazil

For many years, Rio de Janeiro has held the dubious distinction of being one of the world’s most beautiful cities, and at the same time, one of the most dangerous. This... Show More + report is the story of Rio’s attempt to break with history and establish a new kind of state presence in its favelas. This report documents how life in the favelas is changing as a result of the Police Pacification Unit (UPP) pacification effort, as seen through the eyes of favela residents themselves. This study used a qualitative, case-study approach and consisted of observations, focus groups, and key informant interviews in four favelas. The study fits into the broader territorial approach to urban and social development that the World Bank has been supporting in both the state and city of Rio de Janeiro, and for which the historical alliance between federal, state and municipal governments in Rio has been crucial. These projects have focused on strengthening planning and management of urban growth in the metropolitan region, promoting the provision of affordable housing with access to infrastructure and service, and supporting the implementation of a targeted, comprehensive social development program for the urban poor. Under the social development agenda, the Bank has been providing support to Social UPP since its design stage, in 2010, through technical assistance services to strengthen social governance and territorially-based monitoring and evaluation. Show Less -

This chapter introduces the main issues associated with population aging, many of which will be investigated in detail throughout the volume. The next section describes... Show More + the demographic transformation that Brazil has been experiencing and highlights its specific features, including a very rapid population aging process in the next few decades. Then the main economic framework behind this work, the life cycle theory according to which individuals' economic behavior varies according to their age, is discussed. The section after that introduces the first and second demographic dividends associated with the changing population age structure that accompanies the demographic transition of any country. Next covered is how poverty is linked to the life cycle in Brazil and the role of public transfers in reducing poverty among different age groups, followed by an investigation of how public expenditures vary across age groups and generations and what makes Brazil distinct from comparable OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) and Latin American countries. Concluding the chapter are the main findings of the report. Show Less -

The purpose of this note is to advise the Brazilian Government on strategies for transforming the Government-funded guarantee fund (FGHab) established for the Minha... Show More + Casa, Minha Vida (MCMV) program into a sustainable instrument to support the expansion of the housing finance market for low-income households. It includes recommendations related to both parts of the FGHab - support for defaulting borrowers (Guarantee Fund) and coverage for borrower death, permanent disability and property damage (Insurance Fund). The MCMV Program, launched by the Federal Government in March 2009, provides a large package of subsidies to stimulate the construction of one million new affordable houses within a three year period. This is aimed at reducing by 14 percent the existing housing deficit in Brazil (estimated in 2007 at 6.3 million units) and contributing to employment generation in the context of the economic crisis. The report is subdivided as follows. The first section provides a preliminary assessment of the Guarantee Fund. The following section provides some recommendations to enhance the prospects of the sustainability of the Guarantee Fund after the MCMV program has been concluded. In particular, the report argues for combining the current payment protection scheme of the Guarantee Fund (which is primarily a borrower benefit), albeit for a shorter term, with a traditional mortgage insurance benefit (a lender benefit). The third section provides a preliminary assessment of the Insurance Fund and is followed by recommendations. Show Less -

The objective of the Bolsa Familia Project for Brazil is to reduce poverty and inequality today and in the future, and to promote human capital investments among poor... Show More + families through the direct monetary transfers and incentives to poor families. The Bolsa Familia Program: a) consolidates and rationalizes existing federal cash transfer programs; b) promotes efficiency in the use of public resources; c) improves the system for identifying the beneficiary population; d) leverages synergies in jointly promoting education and health and nutrition conditions; e) strengthens monitoring and evaluation; and, f) leverages opportunities to promote vertical integration in the social safety net between federal and sub-national levels. Show Less -

The objective of the Sao Luis Enhancing Municipal Governance and Quality of Life Project is to improve public service in the Bacanga Basin of Sao Luis municipality,... Show More + and enhance the capacity of the city government in promoting local economic development and municipal management. The studies and surveys that have been conducted on the island demonstrate that the local water bodies are grossly affected by different sources of pollution caused by irregular land use and human occupancy The main sources of pollution have been identified as: (i) the disposal of domestic sewage in open-air ditches; (ii) untreated sewage flowing directly into the water courses; (iii) the precarious standards of individual sewage disposal, mainly involving the use of pits; and (iv) the inexistence of systemic and overarching methods for collecting and treating wastewaters generated in the area. To mitigates these issues some of the measures consider in the following areas are as follows: (i) the recovery of the structures of the Bacanga dam and its floodgate system and the implementation of new operating rules; (ii) the establishment of infrastructure in poor areas through the provision of proper sanitation (sewerage facilities, water supply, and urban cleaning), urban drainage, flood control, local access streets, surfacing and other complementary urban civil works; (iii) the removal of people living at present in flood risk areas, involving the resettlement of households potentially affected by flood hazards, developing appropriate resettlement alternatives and finding a socially useful purpose for the previously occupied areas in order to avoid further invasions; (iv) the promotion of land tenure regularization to benefit the households remaining in the intervention areas; (v) to increase the capacity of the local municipal government in land use supervision and supervision/inspection in order to avoid new invasions and further illegal parceling of urban land; (vi) to provide training for local people at present working in the informal job market with a view to their joining the formal market, and to help them to qualify for alternative employment and income generating activities; and(vii) improvement of the competitive capacity of the local municipal government through actions targeted at institutional strengthening. Show Less -

This report examines the implications of spatial heterogeneity - the uneven distribution of poverty, growth, and environmental assets - for policy. Its goal is to inform... Show More + a wide set of policies that are either explicitly spatially targeted or may have unanticipated spatial implications. These include poverty alleviation policies targeted on poor municipios; demand-driven poverty alleviation policies; territorial development policies aimed at stimulating growth in a multi-municipio region; growth policies targeted on semi-arid regions; policies to protect environmental assets. The report focuses on clarifying some of the fundamental assumptions and underpinnings of spatially oriented development policies, addressing six questions organized in three sections. Are policies targeted at poor municipios effective in reaching poor people? Do demand-driven policies favor poor people? What explains divergent labor market experiences in rural areas? Are poverty and economic stagnation in the Northeast closely tied to agroclimatic conditions? Is poverty a major determinant of Amazonian deforestation? Is there a steep trade-off between forest protection and agricultural output? The report advances knowledge in each of these areas, but unresolved issues remain for debate and research. Show Less -

Why is there still severe deprivation in Ceara after so many years of active development eforts? Have government programs been well-designed? What can be done differently... Show More + in the future? How can a more inclusive strategy be combined with the modernization effort? This report argues that a well-designed redistributive strategy is not only consistent with modernization, but is an important complement. Societies that effectively manage inequality and insecurity typically have deep and broad educational systems, and responsive and inclusive political and institutional structures. These can be sources of competitiveness and resilience in the global economy. But there is no magic solution. Success will depend on a range of complementary actions to tackle the various areas of disadvantage to create a virtuous cycle of change that is both redistributuve and growth-oriented. In particular, the report finds that growth alone will be a weak instrument of poverty decline, precisely because of the extent of inequality. Thus the report proposes complementary efforts in four areas: achieving a more equitable pattern of income and job growth; continuing and deepening the effort to get equitable skills development; use of redistributuve transfers for the poor and indigent, as a means of complementing human capital development; and strengthening institutional change, especially at the municipal level. Show Less -