BRAZIL: Poverty remains an issue ahead of Brazilian elections, despite president's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's aggressive "Zero Hunger" programme

The proportion of poor people in Brazil fell more than 19 percent between 2003 and 2005, to 23 percent of the population under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government, a recent study showed. The research by the Getulio Vargas Foundation, covering the first three years of Lula's administration, comes as Lula bids for reelection for a second four-year term Oct. 1. Lula has a commanding lead in opinion polls, riding a wave of popularity powered by rising incomes, low inflation and growing social welfare for the needy. The study said Brazil had met its so-called Millennium Goal of reducing extreme poverty by half between 1990 and 2015 some 10 years early. Since the early 1990s extreme poverty -- with a $1 per day income as a benchmark -- has dropped over 50 percent and now afflicts 5.3 percent of the population. However, these numbers fell due to social assistance programs that direct public money to millions of poor families, what ends up leading to a reduction of the education and health budgets. In the Babilonia slum in Rio de Janeiro, community leader Isaías Ferrreira said although there are a lot of complaints in relation to Lula's administration, he has noticed an improvement in the life quality of the poor as they are having more access to food. "The food I buy really became more accessible in relation to as it were (before Lula). So I noticed the life of the poor improved a little; money circulates more in the hands of the poor," he said. Despite only moderate economic growth, millions of Brazilians have benefited from higher wages, lower inflation, and expanded welfare programs under the Lula administration. Anyone earning less than 120 reais a month qualifies for Lula's Family Bonus. Andre Souza, who also lives in the Babilonia slum in Rio, said Lula's welfare programs, such as the Family Bonus and the Zero Hunger are inefficient "People are voting for him, not in a conscious way, but afraid that the next candidate to be elected doesn't proceed with the Family Bonus (welfare program). So, it means, it is a vote of fear," he argued. The MST, one of Latin America's largest leftist organizations, follows a strategy of staging land invasions to push for land reform in Brazil, where 1 percent of the population owns 47 percent of the land. Political analyst Ricardo Ismael said poverty will only begin to effectively diminish in Brazil, when country's economy grows and more jobs are created for these poor families that receive government help. "Brazil continues to have a problem of economic growth, which holds back the creation of jobs. Therefore, we can only say that poverty is really being reduced in Brazil, when these poor families and their children, start to gain jobs in the work market," he said. In 2003 a garbage collecting company in Rio de Janeiro raised job opportunities offering very low salaries. An incredible number of unemployed made a huge line in front of the company, causing a turmoil and people were knocked over. There were around 42.6 million Brazilians below the poverty line in 2005 out of a total population of 187 million, it said. People making less than 121 reais (55 US dollars) per month were considered living below the poverty line. The political analyst also said the solution would be to increase the participation of the northeastern region in the country's economy to create jobs, because social welfare programs are simply short-term solutions. "The dream of the northeastern people is that the region can increase its participation in national economy and have jobs; if this doesn't occur, certainly it is only a palliative, the granting of this monthly aid to the poor families," he argued. There is still desperate poverty in areas like rural Piaui state in the northeastern region, where 60 percent of the population lives on less than 1 US dollar a day. Slave labour is also common in such regions where misery is to be seen everywhere.

ITN Source | September 27, 2006

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