| BRAZIL’S MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PROVIDES BRIEFING ON BOLSA FAMILIA |
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| Monday, 29 June 2009 10:34 |
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BRASILIA—Brazil’s Minister of Social Development Patrus Ananias gave a briefing on the Brazilian Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program called Bolsa Familia, which was attended by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her delegation during the second leg of the President’s State Visit to Brazil.
“This is a good opportunity to learn from Brazil’s experience in implementing a CCT program and to apply our learnings back home”, said DSWD Secretary Esperanza I. Cabral when asked about the purpose of the briefing. The Secretary was referring to a similar CCT program also being implemented in the Philippines since 2007 called the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), which was patterned after the Latin American CCT, the largest of which is Bolsa Familia. “Bolsa Familia Program was created in 2003 integrating four (4) federal income transfer programs for the Brazilian poor—Bolsa Escola (School Grant), Bolsa Alimentação (Food Grant), Auxilio Gas (Cooking Gas Grant), and Cartáo Alimentação (Food Card) and setting co-responsibilities or conditionalities in order for the beneficiaries to remain on the program,” explained Minister Patrus Ananias during the start of the briefing. Both the Bolsa Familia and the 4Ps strictly enforce a set of conditionalities designed in a way as to increase the chances of attaining the goal of poverty reduction. Compliance to these conditionalities is being regularly monitored and remaining on the program entails compliance with the conditions. Beneficiaries in both programs draw their cash grants directly through a cash card (ATM card) issued by the Land Bank. The 4Ps uses a Proxy Means test (PMT) that estimates household income through the use of proxy socio-economic variables in order to identify its beneficiaries. The method of identifying the poor developed for the 4Ps is the same method used in the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR). Similarly, the Bolsa Familia uses the Single Registry (Cadastra Unica) for the Social Programs of the Federal Government in identifying its beneficiaries. According to Minister Patrus Ananias, Bolsa Familia covers 11.6 million poor families (46 million poor individuals) in all the 5,563 municipalities of Brazil. This is a much larger area coverage than the 4Ps, which covers 700,000 family beneficiaries (4.6 million individuals) in 238 municipalities (out of 1,495 municipalities), 15 cities (out of 136 cities), in 41 provinces (out of 81 provinces). In concluding the briefing, Minister Patrus Ananias attributed Brazil’s success in reaching the Millennium Goal of reducing extreme poverty by 50% five years ahead of schedule to Bolsa Familia. “In 2003, 34% of Brazil’s population lived under the poverty line. However, because of this program, this was significantly reduced to 22.7% in 2007. This year, we have succeeded in reducing poverty incidence to 17%. Also, social inequality has been significantly reduced with the income of the poorest 10% in Brazil increasing seven times more than the income of the richest 10% from 2001-2007,” said the Minister. Given the success of the Bolsa Familia Program and the great potential of the 4Ps, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced her plan to increase the 4Ps beneficiaries from 700,000 families to one million next year. ### 27 June 2009. |
| Last Updated on Monday, 29 June 2009 10:36 |
