Supporting Human Development in Brazil -
February 27, 2003—The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors yesterday approved a US$505 million Programmatic Human Development Sector Reform Loan for Brazil. The loan supports Brazil’s accelerated program of human development reforms. This program works to reduce hunger and poverty in Brazil by improving the quality and reach of public spending in education, health and social assistance. And it helps to protect the poorest and most vulnerable groups from the impacts of economic crises.
"The crucial question right now is how to get the most impact from social spending," said Vinod Thomas, World Bank Brazil Country Director. "The increased quality of public spending supported by the current effort is aimed at enabling Brazil to speed up human development while maintaining fiscal responsibility."
An especially positive aspect of Brazil’s human development sector reform program is identifying cross-cutting issues in education, health and social assistance and focusing on the important issues of accountability, governance, equity, quality and efficiency in public social spending.
This loan will supportthe recent substantial progress on social policies and outcomes. Over the recent years, Brazil has strengthened an innovative set of programs at the federal level to decentralize the delivery of social services, to place a floor on basic education and health spending, and to reduce inter-state and inter-municipality inequalities. It has also developed institutional mechanisms to coordinate and focus assistance to poor communities through a variety of programs to improve assistance for disadvantaged populations.
It will help to further the protection of budgets and monitoring of implementation of effective social policies during times of instability. In the face of macroeconomic instability, sound human development policies such as targeting, redistributing resources to benefit the poor, and making the allocation of resources transparent, are critical for guaranteeing continued growth and poverty reduction.
The encouraging messages from the new administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have been coupled with the launching of important social sector initiatives. The Zero Hunger program, launched as a flagship program to fight hunger, supports the country’s health, education, and social protection agendas.
The new government has announced its commitment to decentralization, education evaluation, community empowerment and participation, and conditional cash transfer programs for the poor. Complementing this is the effort to promote quality growth, competitiveness and employment. The First Job program, to which the World Bank is following up with additional support, is a good example.
"Brazil is carrying out one of the greatest experiments in history of pursuing a bold social program with fiscal responsibility in an unusually tough external environment. This operation is one of the many ways the World Bank is supporting these efforts," said Vinod Thomas. "We will continue to work with the Government of Brazil for the common purpose of fighting poverty and inequality and bringing about socially and environmentally sustainable development in Brazil."
The World Bank’s current investment portfolio in Brazil includes 50 projects, totaling more than $4.5 billion in commitments. Since 1949, the Bank has made more than 300 loans and invested more than $32 billion to promote poverty reduction, social and economic development in Brazil. The World Bank Group, including the IBRD, IFC and MIGA, contemplates $6 billion up to $10 billion in new investments during the four years of this administration.
For more information on the World Bank’s work in the Latin America and Caribbean region, please visit: www.worldbank.org
Related News
World Bank Approves US$505 Million In Support Of Brazil’s Human Development Agenda World Bank Vice President Meets Brazilian Government Officials And Expresses Confidence In The Country’s Social And Economic Path Better Governance Yields Empowerment