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| >> Regional Overview >> Brazil Overview | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE: Brazil is one of the leading economic and political powers in Latin America and a leader in hemispheric affairs. U.S.-Brazilian economic ties have grown steadily as exporters and investors have responded to Brazil's reform, stabilization, and modernization efforts. Nevertheless, Brazil faces many development challenges including providing increased protection for globally important biodiversity; reducing the green house gases associated with global climate change; and increasing support for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis prevention. While trying to address these important needs, a deteriorating socioeconomic situation has made the development challenge even greater. For example, Brazil's poor have increased from 35 to 50 million people over the last six years. Income distribution has also become more skewed, with 10% of the population holding 50% of the total income, while the poorest 50% holds only 10% of the wealth. The north and the northeast, with 43% of Brazil's population, constitute the single largest regional concentration of rural poor in Latin America according to the World Bank. In addition, Brazil faces a staggering foreign debt, which totaled $210 billion in August 2001, or 26% of GDP, resulting in $17 billion being spent on debt servicing between January and August 2001.
Brazil faces challenges that are global in nature, such as the continuing degradation of its rainforests that contributes to climate change and threatens one of the major stocks of the world's biodiversity. Its globally important ecosystems, including the vast Amazon basin, face extensive biodiversity loss from forest conversion and burning. Poorly regulated timber industries and ranching threaten sound land use in the Amazon, Atlantic Coast Rainforest, Cerrado and Wetlands. Therefore, Brazil continues to work with the G-7 Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rainforest (PPG-7) to improve Amazonian Science Centers of Excellence; strengthen environmental agencies of the Amazonian states; conserve Brazil's cultural and biological heritage; and demonstrate economically and environmentally viable options for sustainable use of Amazonian resources. The spread of infectious diseases is another global challenge for Brazil where over 50% of reported AIDS cases in Latin America are located. Many of these cases are low-income women who acquired the disease through heterosexual transmission. The rate of infection exceeds the capacity of programs to prevent sexual transmission of HIV in women, adolescents, and low-income populations. Low-income populations are also more susceptible to tuberculosis than the population at large. The GOB does not have the institutional capacity to diagnose, treat, control, and monitor tuberculosis (TB) through Directly Observed Therapy-Short Course (DOTS) or to develop and implement activities related to TB/HIV co-infection. U.S. national interests in Brazil include protecting the environment; HIV/AIDS prevention; the development of stronger partnerships in open trade throughout the hemisphere; counter-narcotics; and South American regional cooperation. USAID continues to be successful in leveraging resources from NGOs, industry, multilateral banks, cooperatives, universities, and government agencies to address these interests. THE USAID PROGRAM:
The Program Data Sheets provided below cover the four program areas for which USAID is requesting funds. These four program elements concentrate on the global issues of climate change; biodiversity conservation; prevention of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; and assistance to at-risk children and youth. FY 2002 funds will be used to implement the ongoing programs and bring USAID's current strategy to a close. FY 2003 funds will be used to start the implementation of USAID's new five-year strategy, which will continue to focus on the global issues mentioned above, with particular emphasis on those activities that can contribute to improved living conditions for Brazil's poor. The specific activities to be funded by FY 2002 and FY 2003 appropriations are described in more detail in the following Program Data Sheets. ONGOING PROGRAMS FOR WHICH NO NEW FY 2002 OR FY 2003 FUNDING IS REQUESTED: None OTHER PROGRAM ELEMENTS: Funding under the centrally managed Democracy and Governance Program supports the American Center for International Labor Solidarity's program in Brazil. Its objectives are to improve union institutional capacity, improve enforcement of the Brazilian labor code, and promote internationally recognized labor rights. Complementary to USAID's bilateral energy program, Development Credit Authority funds have been directed to a Clean Technology Fund and an Amazon timber company energy co-generation activity. Also, technical assistance has been provided to the Government of Brazil and local universities and research centers in the area of global climate change. USAID is also carrying out activities in the education sector in Brazil as part of the Program for Educational Reform in the Americas (PREAL). Activities include the dissemination of PREAL documents in Portuguese, the organization of a conference on education reform, and the development and maintenance of a database of innovative facts/experiences relative to Brazilian education. OTHER DONORS: While Brazil is currently the recipient of numerous foreign donor programs valued in the billions of dollars, USAID's influence in policy dialogue in areas identified within our strategic plan is significantly larger than our relatively smaller proportion of donors funds would tend to indicate. USAID collaborates with other bilateral and multilateral donors, the Government of Brazil, and the country's private sector, for the purpose of leveraging funds and coordinating efforts. In the environment sector, the main bilateral donors that work in close collaboration with USAID are Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada and the Netherlands. Activities under USAID's environment program leverage considerable funds, especially the $331 million World Bank Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rain Forest (PPG-7). USAID also works in close cooperation with the European Union and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in the area of energy technologies. On AIDS prevention, the World Bank's AIDS II loan has contributed substantially to Brazil's AIDS programs. Coordination of activities among donors is done through the United Nations (U.N.) AIDS Thematic Group that includes USAID, the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the United Kingdom's Department for International Development, the German GTZ, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, the Pan-American Health Organization, the U.N. Drug Control Program, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the U.N. Nations Population Fund, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) and recently, several Brazilian private-sector foundations. In assisting at-risk children and youth, USAID joins efforts with UNICEF, the International Labor Organization, the Brazilian National Social and Economic Development Bank, Save the Children, World Vision, Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services, and a considerable number of private-sector organizations. Program Data Sheets
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