WUNRN
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-24743675
Website
Link Includes Video.
BRAZIL – BOLSA FAMILIA CASH-TRANSFER SUBSIDIES LIFT MANY FROM
POVERTY – CHANNELED THROUGH MOTHERS
The Bolsa Family funds are
channelled through the mothers of poor families
Brazil’s Bolsa Familia is over 10 years old.
Roughly translated as "Family Allowance", Bolsa
Familia is an ambitious cash-transfer scheme.
Its lofty aim: to elevate millions of Brazilians out of poverty
and help to put Brazil on course to become a developed, rather than developing,
country.
Putting the emphasis on women in the family and empowering them
to take responsibility over key decisions has been a masterstroke”
The scheme was launched nationwide by President Lula's
administration in 2003 but had existed in various smaller guises across the
country since the 1990s.
Such is the almost universal acclaim with which Bolsa Familia is
regarded in Brazil today that various political figures lay claim to being the
scheme's original "inventor".
"No one politician or party is gaining from Bolsa
Familia," says Tereza Campello, the government minister for social
development and combating poverty.
"It is in all 5,570 municipalities, no matter who the local
party or politicians are. If you're poor, you qualify," she says.
Mother's role
Bolsa Familia is much more than a government handout and it
works roughly like this.
Funds are nearly always channelled through the mothers of poor
and working-class families, most often in the thousands of favelas or
shantytowns that skirt the fringes of Brazil's main cities.
They are mothers like Ana Cristina, whom I met earlier this year
in Rio de Janeiro's Cidade de Deus favela.
Ana Cristina is one of many who
has benefited from Bolsa Familia
She gets about $140 (£100) per month to buy food for her family.
But the money is conditional on her children attending school, making sure they
get adequate healthcare and an undertaking that they are properly fed.
Ana Cristina and every other Bolsa Familia recipient has her own
personal ID card, which she uses to withdraw the money from a state-run bank.
Apart from allowing the government to regulate and keep tabs on
the scheme, this helps to identify any extra needs or assistance the family may
be entitled to.
Brazil has already surpassed the UN's Millennium Development
Goal of reducing the number of child deaths by 73%; indeed the government
claims that people of all ages now benefit from what amounts to a nutritional
revolution.
Meal a day
A nearby community kitchen serves up healthy square meals three
times a day for less than $1 (60p). Queues form around the block, not just here
in the big city but at thousands of other such establishments across the
country.
Wyre Davies went to a community kitchen in Rio de Janeiro to
find out what is being done there to tackle poverty and hunger
The scheme is now thought to cover as many as 50 million
Brazilians in a country which still has a large proportion of its population
living in poverty, and where subsidising the basic needs of so many people is
not cheap.
There are critical voices that say giving people handouts, in
effect keeping them dependent on welfare, doesn't encourage self-sufficiency
and is a significant burden on state funds.
Others maintain it discourages recipients from actively seeking
work.
But campaigners say Bolsa Familia is remarkably cost-effective
and accounts for less than 0.5% of GDP.
The basic principles behind Bolsa Familia is simple and has been
lauded as a contributory factor in Brazil's impressive economic growth as well
as improving social indicators: Better-fed, healthy people are less of a burden
on society and, with time, contribute more to a country's well being.
Putting the emphasis on women in the family and empowering them
to take responsibility over key decisions has been a masterstroke.
That element, in particular, has been proven to be the best way
of ensuring that children from poorer backgrounds get the best opportunity
possible to grow and develop.
Follow-up
In addition, by being able to identify and follow individual
members of the scheme, the future needs of those individuals can be tracked and
addressed.
The programme's aim is to give
poor children a better start in life
Ms Campello says that while many recipients of the Bolsa Familia
do have jobs, "they are not always the best jobs... and they have little
job security".
Through an add-on programme that gives Bolsa Familia recipients
professional training, the plan is to make these people more employable.
"So far we have trained 800,000 people. These are
individuals with little schooling and these courses help them upgrade their
opportunities,' says Ms Campello.
After 10 years, Bolsa Familia is becoming a well-established
part of Brazilian society and politics.
Not dissimilar to the National Health Service in the United
Kingdom, there are passionate debates in Brazil about the future direction,
cost and management of Bolsa Familia.
But there's very little dissent here about its prominent role in
Brazilian society and its effectiveness at helping people out of poverty.
Indeed the rest of the world, particularly developing countries
in Africa, are increasingly looking to Brazil and asking how they can make such
schemes work for them.