War On Hunger: Noble... But Doable?
View From Within by Lise Alves Week of Dec 28, 2002 - Jan 03, 2003 Lise Alves is a Correspondent based in São Paulo for several media outlets, including Vatican Radio, CNS and the International Transport Journal. She has worked for "Marketplace" and the Christian Science Monitor radio services in the United States, and Deutsche Welle in Germany. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from the University of Maryland.
Brazil’s new President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has stated that one of the first priorities of his government will be to feed the hungry. And, as promised during the campaign, just days after winning the presidency Lula launched the “Fome Zero” program, which translates loosely to “No Hunger”. According to Lula, no Brazilian should have to go a day without breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Although his intentions are noble, this is not the first time the hunger problem takes front row center in a country as large as Brazil, known among other things for one of the world’s largest gaps between the poor and the rich. The idea of having as its first major project the eradication of hunger indicates that the Worker's Party (PT) is following through on its commitment to prioritize social programs, but it also reveals that the party has learned little from others’ past mistakes.
The difficulty begins with the lack of a clear definition, and because of it, the assumption that those who are poor are necessarily under-nourished. Many living under the so-called poverty line have already found means to obtain food, either through NGOs, government programs or family members. How, then, will the government determine who really can or should qualify for the benefit? What criteria will be used?
One of the proposed means to combat hunger is the distribution of stamps – much like food stamps in the U.S. – to those who live in poverty. But the problem with food stamps is that they don't necessarily end up used for their intended purpose. Some of the project’s biggest critics fear that stamps will end up transformed into a “parallel currency”, similar to what already happens in Brazil with public transportation stamps or "passes" employers give to workers as a benefit. One does not have to look too hard in any large Brazilian city to find improvised kiosks, where anyone can swap these stamps for cash. They're also accepted in lieu of cash by many businesses, although always at less than face value. An obvious question then, still to be answered, is how will Lula’s government prevent food stamps from turning into parallel money instead of actually being used to buy food for the undernourished?
During the election campaign, Lula's Worker's Party stated it opposed aid programs created by outgoing President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, which included giving out money and letting the recipients decide how best to use it. Those who created the "Fome Zero" program started out insisting on the concept of distributing food instead of money. That brought back visions of large food depots, with lines going around the block and people camping outside warehouses to receive their monthly share. It also brought back the prospect of suppliers overcharging the government for products, and corrupting public officials to maintain a supply cartel.
All of these are not figments of anyone's imagination, but very real difficulties faced in the not too distant past when similar programs were launched. Without a firm and well thought out game plan, it is very hard to imagine that the Worker's Party would be able to maintain sufficiently rigorous control of where these resources are really ending up. In other words, it's hard to see how the new administration might be successful where so many others have failed.
At this point – and this article was written just days before Lula takes office – actual details of the program have not been released, and the scenario remains murky. No one knows the exact logistics and specifics of the "Fome Zero" program – probably not even the group in charge of drawing up the project. All that's known is that the government has made fighting hunger a top priority. So far, it has yet to provide even the most basic information about how this will be accomplished – where the funds will come from, for example.
The original idea was to obtain revenues from the existing "Fund to Combat Poverty", but that fund has problems of its own. It has expanded out of control, and is now used to rescue just about any government assistance program that is unable to obtain funds elsewhere. Programs aimed at supervising indigenous lands, or the removal of polluting agents in hydro-basins, now resort to this fund and receive money intended to combat poverty.
The bottom line: the incoming government announced its first battle without studying the territory, or thinking through a strategy to combat the chosen enemy. There are far more questions than answers, leaving the population with a deja vu feeling of past administrations.
Related sites: Official transition website, created by the Worker's Party to provide details of the transition process (Portuguese only) transicao.lula.org.br www.infobrazil.com