HOW BRAZIL DODGED THE ECONOMIC CRISIS WHILE SLASHING HUNGER
Guiding the transition from one cycle of development to another is among of the most daunting tasks in politics, but Brazil achieved this with the launch in January 2003 of the Zero Hunger programme, which spurred job creation while restoring the buying power of the minimum wage, writes Jose Graziano da Silva, Director-General elect of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). He will assume the position in January 2012.
In this article, the author writes that what is inspiring about the Brazilian experience is not only the speed and size of the results but the revelation of the mutually- reinforcing interplay between fighting hunger and the new dynamics of growth. One example is the annual captive demand of 1 billion reals (about USD 580 million) generated by family farming thanks to the requirement that one-third of food for schools be bought from local producers. Policies like these can be adapted to the conditions of other countries, reproducing the positive effects in local communities with important benefits, like food security for all society.
Brazil's success confirms that the state remains an important force in redefining the operation of growth in the transition from one economic cycle to another. Its actions restored the massive domestic market's central role, allowing the country to continue to grow as trade and employment shrank worldwide. Today we are free to say what in the 90s was anathema: that a society controls its development only when it is able to regulate it with public policies generated democratically by an active state in association with an organized civil society and the participation of the private sector.
(*) Jose Graziano da Silva is Director-General elect of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). He will assume the position in January 2012.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service