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Millennium Development Goals in Brazil

At a recycling yard in Belo Horizonte © United Nations Development Programme

Contemporary Brazil, an upper middle-income country, has long suffered from one of the highest levels of socioeconomic inequality in the world. However, research published in 2006 points to signs of improvement. Between 2001 and 2004, the income of the richest 1% of the population fell by 9.57%, while the income of the poorest 10% rose by 23.37%. Much of the redistribution is attributed to social programmes adopted since 2000 and strengthened under the current government, in particular the Bolsa Família (a family-based income-support programme), which has attracted international attention. However, there are calls for such programmes to be accompanied by greater investments in health and education, to sustain and advance the relatively modest improvements to date.

Uneven income distribution combines with other inequalities to pose the main obstacle to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Brazil. Less than 3% of the population controls two thirds of the land available for production. 4.8 million rural families are landless and more than 80% of Brazilians are now concentrated in urban areas, where many live in favelas (shantytowns) with inadequate water supply, health facilities and educational opportunities. The inequality is also regional – the north-east of the country is the poorest region whilst research by a Brazilian NGO, Imazon, records that most MDG indicators in Brazil’s Amazon states are well below the national average.

However, there is some cause for celebration. A government report on the MDGs published in August 2007 showed that the country has already met the first MDG target, having achieved a reduction in the percentage of Brazilians living on less than one dollar a day from 9.5% to 4.2% between 1992 and 2005.

97% of Brazilian children are enrolled in primary school, though the quality of state education remains a cause for concern. Brazilian women generally enjoy a higher level of literacy and number of years in education than men, although men continue to fare better in employment. Large regional differences remain in relation to the reduction of child and mother mortality and, with more than 40 million people in Brazil lacking proper access to safe water, progress with sanitation is also particularly worrying. However, the approval of a national water resources plan in the country in early 2006 was an important step forward and the first such initiative in Latin America.

Politics in Brazil

Lula da Silva © Radio Netherlands

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio “Lula” Da Silva was sworn in for a second four-year term in January 2007, after an election that went to the second round. His government is a coalition led by the PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores), or Workers’ Party, which he helped to found. It grew out of a period of industrial unrest which mobilised a variety of left-wing groups and social movements into an opposition party, ultimately leading to the overthrow of the military dictatorship which ruled the country between 1964 and 1985 and the re-establishment of democracy.

Lula’s time in office has been characterised by repeated allegations of corruption involving the PT party, its allies and the Brazilian political system. These came to a head in mid-2005 with the breaking of the mensalão vote-buying scandal in Brazil’s Congress. Although some key political figures resigned as a result, Lula himself managed to escape relatively unscathed. The long overdue political reforms have not yet been implemented.

Under Lula, Brazil has strengthened its international influence. The country is one of the candidates for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, if and when proposals for expansion go ahead, and has taken on the lead role in the UN peace-keeping force in Haiti, albeit with a contested record. Brazil has also been particularly active in shaking up international trade negotiations, and has formed strong alliances with other large developing nations such as India, South Africa and China, as well as with other left-wing leaders in Latin America.
Civil Society in Brazil

MST, Brazil

Today, Brazil has a thriving civil society culture, and thousands of NGOs. The largest social movement in Latin America is also Brazilian – the Movimento de Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra (MST) or Landless Workers' Movement, in existence since 1984. Like other social movements in Brazil, it was traditionally very close to the PT, but this relationship is changing with the PT in power. The MST’s main concern is the fight for agrarian reform, and MST members all over Brazil are involved in land occupations. Many national and international NGOs support the MST in its fight which also involves the practice of agroecology, a growing movement in Brazil.

Brazil is also well known as the cradle of the World Social Forum process, an international gathering of activists, social movements, NGOs and other groups to reflect on and propose alternatives to globalisation and neo-liberalism around the slogan "another world is possible" which was first held in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in 2001.
Human Rights in Brazil

Masked policeman, Brazil © Amnesty International - International Secretariat

Although Brazil’s constitution and laws recognise universal human rights, there are many ongoing problems in this area, including in particular police and prison violence, torture and extrajudicial killings. Juvenile detention centres are notorious for their appalling conditions and prisons in general are overcrowded and insanitary. Those responsible for abuses typically enjoy widespread impunity and the justice system is slow and corrupt.

Rural activists, such as members of the MST and indigenous peoples, continue to suffer intimidation and violent attacks and are sometimes killed as a result of their fight for land and other rights in rural Brazil. Again, the perpetrators of these attacks, often a complicated web of individuals and interests, tend to go unpunished. Slave labour is another problem in rural areas.

Violence against women is also a cause for concern in what is an extremely machista culture. It is estimated that every fifteen seconds a Brazilian woman suffers from violence, but despite the existence of women’s police stations and the “Maria da Penha” law passed in 2006, levels of reporting remain low.
Conflict in Brazil

Child 'soldiers' in Brazil © Anja Kessler / Americas Policy Program

Urban Brazil, where the majority of the population lives, suffers from a high level of crime, violence and conflict. This problem is not restricted to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo; recent research shows that Brazil’s smaller towns and cities also face high levels of violence.

Much of the armed conflict in Rio de Janeiro is between the police and the different drug gangs which control the favelas, or between rival drug gangs, and often spills over to affect ordinary people, particularly those living in favelas. Increasingly, militia made up of current or previous members of the security forces are also often present in these communities. São Paulo also faces clashes between gangs and the police, notoriously in May 2006 when members of the PCC gang commanded attacks from inside prisons using mobile phones.

Many children are caught up in the conflict through their employment in the drugs trade, with homicide rates for children and youth in Rio de Janeiro comparable to and in some cases higher than those in wartorn countries.
Health in Brazil

Dancing against AIDS in Brazil © Changemakers.net

Brazil has around 620,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, the largest number in the Latin American and Caribbean region. Although the number of new cases is levelling off, infection rates are on the rise among women, black and mixed-race Brazilians, and the poor. The Ministry of Health’s strategy for dealing with the disease combines prevention and treatment - HIV/AIDS patients receive antiretroviral drugs free of charge from the government. This is possible because the drugs are either manufactured at low-cost, as generics, produced and sold without patent, or purchased at a discounted price negotiated directly with foreign pharmaceutical companies. This approach has attracted praise and is generally regarded as an international model, although there are concerns about the sustainability of the programme, which is just over ten years old.

Recent research has pointed to a potential link between deforestation and higher incidence of malaria - and dengue fever, likewise transmitted by the mosquito, is also a problem. Although overall rates are falling, tuberculosis continues to strike mainly poorer people living on the edges of larger cities.
The Environment in Brazil

Indigenous Brazilians

Brazil is considered to have the richest biodiversity in the world - most of the Amazon rainforest is in Brazilian territory. Often mistakenly perceived as an empty space, the Brazilian Amazon is home to an estimated 20 million people - some in cities and towns - and many of them indigenous peoples, seringueiros (rubber-tappers), or riberinhos (inhabitants of traditional river communities), who make practical and sustainable use of the forest in their way of life.

However, this forest is constantly under threat particularly from illegal and destructive logging, mining, road building and increasingly, cattleranching and industrial farming, often of soya. However, there was a 25% reduction in deforestation from August 2005 to July 2006 following a similar reduction the year before. Preliminary figures for 2006-2007 indicate that this promising trend is continuing.

Brazil is the second largest producer of soya in the world, much of it for export, with China a rapidly growing market. A number of civil society groups campaign against the use of genetically modified soya and other crops in Brazil. There are also concerns about the use of soya and sugar cane for the production of biofuels, as part of Brazil’s high profile support for renewable energy sources (it is the world’s largest producer and consumer of ethanol). At the same time, it is the eighth largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the third largest in the developing world, after China and India, stemming largely from forestry and unsustainable land use.

Amazon burning © Environment News Service (ENS)

During 2005, the Amazon region was hit by a severe drought, the worst for forty years, threatening health and the local economy as well as the environment. The cause of the drought is thought to be rising sea temperatures in the North Atlantic - indeed the Amazon rainforest and climate change are evolving in a highly sensitive state of interdependence. In fact, desertification is an issue in Brazil as a whole with 16% of the national territory at risk, particularly in the north and northeast.

Information and Media in Brazil

Media ownership in Brazil is dominated by a small number of large private companies, often family-owned. The largest is the Globo empire which includes both terrestrial and cable television, radio, internet and newspapers. This polarisation is an issue for civil society which wants more democratic access to the media and better representation of the cultural diversity of Brazil.

The inequality which marks Brazil in many other aspects is also apparent when it comes to access to information and communication technologies (ICTs). However, access to telephones and the internet has risen dramatically in recent years, largely as a result of privatisation of the telecommunications sector, and mobile phones are also increasingly widespread. While Brazilian users dominate on the popular social networking site Orkut, and make enthusiastic use of YouTube, around two thirds of the country’s population has never accessed the internet. The north and north-east regions of the country have markedly less internet access points than the rest of the country. Community radios also continue to have a difficult existence in Brazil, with regular stories of stations being closed down by government agents and a long and bureaucratic process to secure a licence.

There are many innovative initiatives by civil society, private foundations and federal, state and local governments to provide internet access and capacity-building to poorer groups. A number of different federal government ministries run digital inclusion programmes including the provision of satellite connectivity, the establishment of telecentres, support for multimedia cultural production, and the sale of low-cost computers to Brazilians on a lower income, but an overarching strategy is still missing.

ICT learning in Brazil © Daniela Katzenstein Hart / Changemakers.net

Under the PT, the Brazilian government has become a vocal advocate of free and open source software or software livre both nationally and internationally (though there are some inconsistencies). Brazil also takes a pioneering approach to internet governance, through its multistakeholder Brazil Internet Steering Committee (CGI-Br), and hosted the second meeting of the Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro in November 2007.

Similarly, there is widespread support in Brazil for alternative approaches to the current intellectual property rights regime. The musician Gilberto Gil (one of the leaders of the Tropicália movement from the late 1960s), now Minister of Culture in Lula’s government, has endorsed the Creative Commons approach which offers a flexible form of copyright for creative work.



Tori Holmes worked in Brazil from 2004 to 2007 as a freelance consultant, researcher and translator specialising in the social use and impact of information and communication technologies. She has a masters degree in Latin American Studies, and is currently based between Brazil and the UK, where she has begun a PhD at the University of Liverpool on the use of the internet by low-income Brazilians.

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