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Brazil – Forging a Strategic Partnership for Results evaluates the World Bank assistance program to Brazil during the 1990-2002 period and examines three main and inter-related questions. First, whether the objectives of Bank assistance were relevant, given Brazil’s development need and challenges during this period. Second, whether the Bank’s assistance program was effectively designed and consistent with its objectives. Third whether the Bank’s program achieved its objectives and had a substantive impact on the country’s development during this period. The greatest lesson learned from a decade of assistance is the need to ensure macroeconomic stability and Government ownership of the Bank’s assistance program. The unsatisfactory project outcomes and the low effectiveness of the Bank’s assistance in the early 1990s reflected fundamentally the lack of a stable macroeconomic framework and a clear development agenda. The Bank’s central objectives of poverty alleviation and growth cannot be achieved under these circumstances. Other major lessons include the need for the Bank to build technical capacity in the field, maintain an open and frequent policy dialogue with federal and state authorities, employ the resources of the local academic community, and have the ability to closely supervise its projects.

This report constitutes a step towards the objective of designing an integrated strategy for rural poverty reduction in Brazil, with a particular focus on rural poor in the Northeast and Southeast of Brazil. The report identifies key determinants of rural poverty in these regions and proposes a strategic framework in which to couch a set of integrated policies that could effectively help to reduce rural poverty in Brazil. The need for an integrated strategy arises because of the heterogeneous nature of the rural poor in Brazil. As no single simple remedy for rural poverty reduction in Brazil can be identified, the report proposes as a more effective alternative, an integrated policy approach that provides multiple paths out of rural poverty tailored to key characteristics distinguishing various household groups.

This country program evaluation (CPE) evaluates World Bank Group (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), or the Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) operations in Brazil from FY2004 through FY2011. It seeks to answer two questions: to what extent was the Bank Group program relevant to Brazil's development needs?, and how effective were Bank Group operations in helping to accelerate economic growth and making growth more inclusive and environmentally sustainable? The period reviewed was covered by two country strategies, one for FY2004-07 and the other for FY2008-11. The evaluation comments on aspects of the country partnership strategy (CPS) FY2012-15 with particular reference to its relevance and design. The report aims to extract lessons relevant to future Bank Group operations in Brazil. The study also examines the synergies between lending and knowledge services and the effectiveness of collaboration within the Bank Group and with external development partners. This report has five chapters. Chapter one gives purpose and country context. Chapter two summarizes the Bank Group operations and examines trends and patterns during the evaluation period. Chapters three and four assess the relevance and contributions of these operations to the objectives stated in the country strategies. The concluding chapter draws lessons and recommendations for the Bank Group's future engagement in Brazil.

This book investigates the Brazilian health cooperation in Mozambique looking at the interests of both actors and different power relations within this initiative. It counts with a case study looking at the implementation of SociedadeMocambicana de Medicamentos - a pharmaceutical factory that was implemented in Maputo as a result of the cooperation between the countries.

This chapter introduces the main issues associated with population aging, many of which will be investigated in detail throughout the volume. The next section describes the demographic transformation that Brazil has been experiencing and highlights its specific features, including a very rapid population aging process in the next few decades. Then the main economic framework behind this work, the life cycle theory according to which individuals' economic behavior varies according to their age, is discussed. The section after that introduces the first and second demographic dividends associated with the changing population age structure that accompanies the demographic transition of any country. Next covered is how poverty is linked to the life cycle in Brazil and the role of public transfers in reducing poverty among different age groups, followed by an investigation of how public expenditures vary across age groups and generations and what makes Brazil distinct from comparable OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) and Latin American countries. Concluding the chapter are the main findings of the report.

The subject of food security and land issues in Africa has become one of increased importance and contention over recent years. In particular, the focus has shifted to the role new global South donors – especially India, China and Brazil – are playing in shaping African agriculture through their increased involvement and investment in the continent. Approaching the topic through the framework of South-South co-operation, this highly original volume presents a critical analysis of the ways in which Chinese, Indian and Brazilian engagements in African agriculture are structured and implemented. Do these investments have the potential to create new opportunities to improve local living standards, transfer new technology and knowhow to African producers, and reverse the persistent productivity decline in African agriculture? Or will they simply aggravate the problem of food insecurity by accelerating the process of land alienation and displacement of local people from their land? Topical and comprehensive, Agricultural Development and Food Security in Africa offers fresh insight into a set of relationships that will shape both Africa and the world over the coming decades.

Background Programs offering financial support have been established to mitigate the economic fallout and vulnerabilities arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, financial incentives were introduced to promote compliance with social isolation measures, thereby preventing SARS-CoV-2 infections and transmission. However, few low- and middle-income countries have implemented financial aid to alleviate the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We estimated the association between the Brazilian Emergency Aid (EA) Program and SARS-CoV-2 testing demand, SARS-CoV-2 prevalence, and social isolation levels. Methods In this quasi-experimental study, we assessed microdata information from 380,000 individuals surveyed in the COVID-19 National Household Sample Survey (COVID-19 NHSS) between July 1, 2020, and Nov 30, 2020. Individuals meeting the EA eligibility criteria, those who have taken the SARS-CoV-2 test, those diagnosed with COVID-19, and/or those complying with social isolation measures were included. Beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries were matched (1:1) using propensity score matching, combined with the entropy balance technique and inverse probability treatment weighting, considering all relevant socioeconomic and health covariates. We performed logistic regression to compute the monthly average impact of EA benefits on the outcomes above. Results We included 171,183 performed tests, 19,218 COVID-19 cases, and individuals’ self-response in complying with mild ( N  = 660,297), moderate ( N  = 597,159), strict social isolation ( N  = 149,125), and those who did not constrain social gatherings ( N  = 1,406,581). EA recipients showed greater testing demand (November; odds ratio [OR] = 1.014, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.001–1.026); however, this did not significantly reduce SARS-CoV-2 prevalence. Beneficiaries adhered better to mild isolation from July–September (September; OR: 1.017, 95% CI: 1.007–1.028), with no significant improvement from October–November. EA beneficiaries did not adhere to moderate (July, OR: 0.95, 95% CI: 0.94–0.97; November, OR: 0.83, 95% CI: 0.80–0.86) or strict (July, OR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.75–0.84; November, OR: 0.77, 95% CI: 0.73–0.81) isolation compared to non-beneficiaries. Conclusions Despite the severe COVID-19 situation in Brazil owing to the lack of effective public health policies and government resistance to scientific guidance, being an EA beneficiary was associated with increased testing demand and better adherence to mild social isolation measures.

Background Reducing poverty and improving access to health care are two of the most effective actions to decrease maternal mortality, and conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes act on both. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of one of the world’s largest CCT (the Brazilian Bolsa Familia Programme (BFP)) on maternal mortality during a period of 11 years. Methods The study had an ecological longitudinal design and used all 2548 Brazilian municipalities with vital statistics of adequate quality during 2004–2014. BFP municipal coverage was classified into four levels, from low to consolidated, and its duration effects were measured using the average municipal coverage of previous years. We used negative binomial multivariable regression models with fixed-effects specifications, adjusted for all relevant demographic, socioeconomic, and healthcare variables. Results BFP was significantly associated with reductions of maternal mortality proportionally to its levels of coverage and years of implementation, with a rate ratio (RR) reaching 0.88 (95%CI 0.81–0.95), 0.84 (0.75–0.96) and 0.83 (0.71–0.99) for intermediate, high and consolidated BFP coverage over the previous 11 years. The BFP duration effect was stronger among young mothers (RR 0.77; 95%CI 0.67–0.96). BFP was also associated with reductions in the proportion of pregnant women with no prenatal visits (RR 0.73; 95%CI 0.69–0.77), reductions in hospital case-fatality rate for delivery (RR 0.78; 95%CI 0.66–0.94) and increases in the proportion of deliveries in hospital (RR 1.05; 95%CI 1.04–1.07). Conclusion Our findings show that a consolidated and durable CCT coverage could decrease maternal mortality, and these long-term effects are stronger among poor mothers exposed to CCT during their childhood and adolescence, suggesting a CCT inter-generational effect. Sustained CCT coverage could reduce health inequalities and contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal 3.1, and should be preserved during the current global economic crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A companion to the bestseller, The Impact of Economic Policies on Poverty and Income Distribution, this title deals with theoretical challenges and cutting-edge macro-micro linkage models. The authors compare the predictive and analytical power of various macro-micro linkage techniques using the traditional RHG approach as a benchmark to evaluate standard policies, such as, a typical stabilization package and a typical structural reform policy.