Rio de Janeiro – The Brazilian government, in partnership with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (Undp), has launched this Friday (21st), in Rio de Janeiro, the Learning Initiative for a World Without Poverty (WWP). The initial goal is to disseminate successful Brazilian experiences in social assistance and fighting poverty among social policymakers in other countries, via the www.wwp.org.br website. The Brazilian minister of Social Development and Hunger Alleviation, Tereza Campello, explained that in the future, the program will provide a platform for the virtual exchange of experiences in fighting hunger and poverty.
“Our desire is to be able to welcome successful experiences from other countries, including impact assessment, tips on how to implement these programs, and how to make them successful in other countries,” said the minister. “We do not want a mere repository of random documents,” she said on announcing that the platform will include videos, onsite visits, information that provides working tools, without requiring foreign policymakers to leave their countries.
The website was launched during the 2014 South-South Learning Forum held by the World Bank. Over four days, policymakers, officials and social program technicians from 50 developing countries convened to outline and implement social and labour protection systems. The website should also feature interactive networks, allowing participants to ask questions and give their opinions on practical aspects of the policies outlined.
The minister of the Secretariat for Strategic Affairs of the Brazilian Presidency and chairman of the Institute for Applied Economics Research (Ipea), Marcelo Neri, said the interchange, questions and opinions will enable Brazil to improve its policies or devise new ones based on experiences from elsewhere. As a case in point, he mentioned the Oriented Productive Microcredit Program (Crediamigo), created in Bangladesh and adapted for Brazil. “We often have no idea of what is being done. Hence, we need this joint knowledge bank, a collective exchange of memory that will prove very useful.”
The Undp chairman in Brazil, Jorge Chediek, and the director of the World Bank in Brazil, Deborah Wetzel, said the main goal on sponsoring of the initiative is to move from theory into action, and that the Brazilian government’s successful results may help other countries facing sharp social inequality.
“This example is worth showing to all countries in the world, so they may learn lessons, and this is why we picked Brazil to be the leader,” Deborah explained. She said the World Bank sustains similar partnerships with other countries for spreading knowledge of public policies. “In China, for instance, we have a partnership for urban transportation; in South Africa, we have a partnership for healthcare,” she said.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
