COMMITMENT 9

To significantly increment and more efficiently use resources assignedto social development

The requirements of the fiscal adjustment and the successive international financial crises were major barriers Brazil had to overcome to implement comprehensive social policies. Even so, the federal social expenditure has been increasing: from R$ 77.7 billion, in 1993, it has moved to 114.7 billion, in 1998. The sustainable growth trend is confirmed by the per capita social expenditure, which was R$ 515.2, in 1993, and reached R$ 710.70, in 1998. As a proportion of GDP, the Brazilian social expenditure has been stable, around 21%, one of the highest percentiles in Latin America.

The efficiency gains derive from the institutional reform of basic social services, particularly in the domains of social security, health, social assistance and education. It is a very deep and comprehensive change, with ambitious goals. It is aimed at improving the quality and the degree of coverage of these services, at eliminating socially unfair mechanisms of access and appropriation of its benefits, at reinforcing decentralisation and social control in its execution and at inhibiting the reproduction of the practices of client-clique policies, with the major purpose of increasing its impact in terms of re-distribution which, historically, has proven to be very low in Brazil.

Quite an amount of progress has been achieved. The first stage of the reform of Social Security has been completed, geared to the elimination of socially unacceptable and financially unsustainable privileges. The apparatus of Social Security was reorganised, with the elimination of foci of waste of public funds and of reproduction of political cliques of influence. The National Fund for Social Assistance was regulated, under terms that make the transference of funds for states and municipalities conditional to the previous creation and operation of their respective social-assistance councils, funds and plans.

New mechanisms for the transfer of funds to states and municipalities were put in place, in the domains of health and education. Examples of the latter include the Basic Care Threshold - PAB, in the domain of health, and the Fund for the Maintenance and the Development of Elementary Education and for Valorising the Teaching Profession - FUNDEF, in education, both essential for the strengthening decentralisation and for increasing the impact of social expenditure in terms of re-distribution.

The notion that what is public is not the same as state-owned and is not limited to that is beginning to pervade Brazilian society. Parallel to the state public sector and to the private sector, there blossoms a non-governmental and non-profit third sector. Private initiatives having public purposes abound.

This active and constant participation of citizens represents an unheard of opportunity for expanding resources and competencies for tackling the major national challenges, such as the struggle against poverty and the incorporation of the excluded to the basic rights of citizenship. In testing, although at a small scale, innovating solutions for social problems, the organisations of civil society have accumulated a collection of experiences, knowledge and patterns of action that qualify them as government’s unavoidable partners in the promotion of social development.

The acknowledgement by the public powers of this new solidarity-based, participatory and responsible profile of society has been translated into the construction of new channels of participation and into new forms of articulation among governmental agencies and organisations within society. The partnership between the State and society expands and becomes general, as an essential component of social policies and programmes.

In Brazil, private initiative has a significant presence in the response to social demands of communities. A survey carried out in 1999, in the Southeast Region - where more than half the companies in the country are concentrated - indicates that 300 thousand business organisations develop social actions (67% of the companies covered by the survey). These encompass both small occasional donations and well-structured projects in the domains of social assistance, food, health, education, the environment and community development.

The volume of private resources meant for social activities with public purposes nearly reaches the figure of R$ 3.5 billion, which corresponds to less than 1% of the gross revenue of the companies in the region. The perception of entrepreneurs that this action must go beyond assistance and reflect a social responsibility is a recent one, and it tends to grow.

Given the importance of entrepreneurial action, it is desirable that this sector joins its efforts to the State’s and to those of third-sector organisations, in the quest for alternative solutions for Brazilian social problems.

In order to fight pauperism and to reinforce the State as the agent promoting the reduction of inequalities, Programme Solidarity Community was created in 1995. More than a programme, it is a new strategy for mobilising the public sector and society, in order to overcome situations of extreme social exclusion still existing in the country.

This strategy had the following starting points: on the one hand, the selection of the federal government plans more apt to improve the living conditions of low-income populations, in the domains of education, health, nutrition, sanitation, housing, professional training and income and employment generation. This set of actions made up the Basic Agenda of Programme Solidarity Community. On the other hand, there was the definition of the priority scope for the Programme’s action, that is, municipalities having more concentration of poverty, identified through criteria linked to income and infantile mortality, among other indicators. The focus defined for the Basic Agenda has prevented the dispersion of funds and has made it clear that the effort of struggle against pauperism would not lend itself to be instrumental of political and partisan interests.

In implementing this strategy, Solidarity Community has a two-fold mission. Within the inner pace of government it operates through its Executive Secretariat, which does not centralise resources or competencies of other ministries, but tries to promote articulation among different federal, state and municipality organisations involved in the execution of programmes.

Within the space of intersection between government and society, there operates the Council of Solidarity Community, made up of the Ministers of Education, Health, Labour, the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic and 28 civil-society leaders - social entrepreneurs, heads of non-governmental organisations, business people, artists and intellectuals. Their task is to mobilise partners in private initiative and among the organisations of society, for the development of innovating and effective social-integration programmes.

In both missions, Solidarity Community is producing the intended outcomes. In 1998, circa 40% of fiscal resources assigned to Basic Agenda efforts, as articulated by the Programme’s Executive Secretariat, were meant for the 1.369 municipalities that make up Solidarity Community’s sphere of action. It is a quite expressive percentile, taking into account the fact that, before, most of those municipalities only received, off and on, voluntary transfers of federal funds. In 1997, over 50% of the municipalities of Solidarity Community have implemented at least ten programmes included in the Basic Agenda, as compared to 17% in the previous year.

Articulated by the Programme’s Council, three successful innovating programmes verify the effectiveness of partnerships and the growing adherence to initiatives based upon the principle of social responsibility: Solidarity University, Solidarity Training and Solidarity Literacy Campaigns.

Solidarity University - created in 1995, this programme mobilises several sectors of society and of the State, to work with communities of the poorest municipalities in the country. By means of the voluntary adherence of universities and local governments, the programme already involves nearly one thousand teams of students and professors, who operate in destitute areas all over the country, by transmitting information and basic notions on health, education, community organisation and citizenship. During three weeks, the teams try to mobilise people, particularly the local multiplication agents - teachers and their students, health agents and community leaderships.

In addition to investing in community organisation and in the quest for local solutions to improve the living conditions of the population, Solidarity University invests in the citizenship-oriented education of future professionals, by strengthening the concept of social responsibility amongst young university students. It also contributes to the dissemination and consolidation of the community-based action of Brazilian universities.

Solidarity Training - This programme started in 1996, with funds provided by private companies and the support of non-governmental organisations. It is geared to deprived and low-schooling young people in the age group from 15 to 21, who need training for the labour market. In less than four years of activities, it has funded circa 1.700 courses and trained 52 thousand youngsters, most of them coming from low-income families from the outskirts of capital cities.

Solidarity Literacy Campaigns - This is one of the best examples of action in public spaces produced by Brazil. By means of campaigns the Programme enters into partnerships with civil society, recruits university students and collects funds from the private sector to fight illiteracy in the age group from 12 to 18. The programme is specially geared to the poorer municipalities, where the problem of illiteracy is concentrated.

Established in January 1997, two and a half years later the programme was already operating in 581 municipalities, most of them in the North and Northeast Regions, the poorest in Brazil. Until the end of 1999, the programme assisted 776 thousand students, in over 800 municipalities. The assessments of results, part of the initiative, prove its effectiveness, particularly because it is part of a broader social action, developed by Solidarity Community.

– currently 9 million people receive direct social assistance in Brazil, without any participation of public funds;

– overall, philanthropy turns R$ 12 billion a year;

– in 1998, 36 million Brazilians participated of some social initiative, whether by donating money or contributing with material goods. Only these personal donations by anonymous citizens accounted for R$ 1.1 billion, even if they are not income-tax deductible;

– one in each six Brazilians over the age of 18 is a voluntary in social projects all over the country;

• even the poorest Brazilians, who earn from one to two minimal wages, are voluntary donors: 13% of them donate money, and 20% donate foodstuff and other goods.

Publications

Summary

Commitment 10