Cairo – Activating the cooperation agenda in the social area of Brazil and Egypt and guaranteeing continuation of works are the main objectives of the visit of the Brazilian Ministry of Social Development and Hunger Alleviation (MDS) delegation that participated yesterday (10) in meetings with representatives of the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity, in Cairo.
During a visit to Brazil, in 2007, the Egyptian minister of Social Solidarity, Ali El-Sayed Al-Moselhy, signed an agreement for cooperation between both countries in the social area. "The agreement forecasted a great space for cooperation with Egypt and also in the scope of the Aspa (Summit of Arab-South American Countries), but for the activity to be incremented, it is necessary for there to be several meetings between specialists in the area, where there may be exchange of ideas that are useful to both parties," said Carla Chelotti, the diplomat responsible for the social area at the embassy of Brazil in Cairo.
The Egyptian ministry of Solidarity has been seeking, in recent years, models that may be adequate to the Egyptian reality for the eradication of poverty. The phenomenon has been causing greater and greater concern among the Egyptian authorities responsible. "The Brazilian experience is certainly successful," stated Luziele Tapajós, an advisor from the National Social Assistance Secretariat. "We provide services in the areas of public policies and social law servicing almost 60 million people. We climbed from a budget of 4 billion Brazilian reals (US$ 1.7 billion) in 2003 to 34 billion reals (US$ 14.5 billion) turned to Brazilian social programs," he added.
To the director of information management and technological resource management at the MDS, Roberto Rodrigues, it is necessary for this question to be faced in a practical way and for the areas of Brazilian experience to be more useful in the reality of Egypt. "For this reason we are representing three different areas of the ministry: the one responsible for social assistance, for income transfer and for monitoring and evaluation," he said. These three themes were previously chosen by Egypt as areas of greatest interest to the country.
During the first meeting, the members of the MDS delegation provided details to the Egyptian representatives about the operation of the mechanisms for implementation of Brazilian social programs. "I clearly felt that, during our talk today, some areas of specific interest little by little emerged in the talks," said Rodrigues. "The truth is that we are presenting the Brazilian experience, but we are also making use of the opportunity to learn more about the Egyptian reality," he added.
Family Purse
According to Anderson Brandão, the general benefit coordinator of the Family Purse, an income transfer program of the government of Brazil, the Egyptians showed great interest in the operating structure of the program.
"We told them that an important characteristic of the Family Purse is the fact that there is no intermediary for the withdrawal of the benefit granted. Once families enter our program, they may go to a bank and withdraw the money," he said. This, according to him, bars phenomena like clientelism and guarantees the independence of families. "Those receiving the benefit then understand that this is a right, and not a favour that they are receiving," he pointed out.
The Egyptians responsible also showed great interest in the Family Purse’s effects of making local economies more dynamic. "In Brazil we have regions in which there is no circulation of products as people lack money, and the economy does not move as people do not have income. This also takes place in Egypt. But when there is income transfer to impoverished people, a market is established and the immediate result is a more dynamic local economy," said Brandão. "These economic activities produce a movement and result in the improvement of living conditions and, consequently, in local development," he said.
The fact that in Brazil those benefited by the Family Purse are always women should suffer a modification due to the Arab and Egyptian cultural reality. "In Brazil, the benefit normally goes to the woman or to the mother of the family. It is she who receives the magnetic card, for withdrawal of the funds. We did this because we noticed that the responsibility of the woman within the family, of taking care of the children and the feeding, has much to do with the objectives of the program, aimed at promoting feeding and education. Therefore, using the woman as this link, in our case, causes the income policy to have better results," said Brandão. According to him, this cultural difference did not cause the Egyptian enthusiasm to drop.
*Translated by Mark Ament
