São Paulo – This Thursday (23rd), roughly 70 ministers from African countries learned about social programs implemented successfully in Brazil. They are attending a ministerial meeting at the First Session of the Specialized Technical Committee on Social Development, Labor and Employment of the African Union (AU), where the Brazilian minister of Agrarian Development, Patrus Ananias, discussed Brazil’s background in public policies for social inclusion. The meeting took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
In his address, Ananias said Brazil has been helping African countries for a few years now. “Many countries in Africa have adopted social policies that have been successfully implemented in Brazil, like (the conditional cash transfer program) Bolsa Família. In Africa today, and this is the reason for our meeting, social protection is under discussion – or, in other words, social inclusion in such a way that African countries may overcome hunger, malnutrition and extreme poverty like Brazil did,” he said.
The minister spoke on several programs, including Mais Alimentos Internacional (the International More Food program), whereby machinery, tractors and agricultural implements are sold from Brazil to developing countries under ultra-friendly prices and conditions in a bid to encourage farming, especially of the family-based kind. The program’s goal is to improve food security and nutrition, as well as support the Brazilian machinery industry.
Ananias told the ministers the funds allocated to social public policies and to supporting family farming are investments that do pay. In his speech he also touched on human rights and stressed that these social policies must take legal aspects into account, that the food issue must be approached from a legal perspective.
Besides government officials, the meeting was attended by delegates from international organizations such as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). On Tuesday (21st), Ananias convened with representatives from the former organizations plus the African Union.
During this meeting, the Brazilian minister underscored the importance of international institutions in developing the necessary tools for implementing and overseeing development-oriented policies, as was the case in Brazil. The topic of this Thursday’s meeting was “Social Protection for Inclusive Growth.”
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
