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Examines the South American country that is destined to be one of the world's premier economic powers by the year 2030, and considers some of the abundant problems the nation faces.

Structurally intact tropical forests sequestered about half of the global terrestrial carbon uptake over the 1990s and early 2000s, removing about 15 per cent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions 1 – 3 . Climate-driven vegetation models typically predict that this tropical forest ‘carbon sink’ will continue for decades 4 , 5 . Here we assess trends in the carbon sink using 244 structurally intact African tropical forests spanning 11 countries, compare them with 321 published plots from Amazonia and investigate the underlying drivers of the trends. The carbon sink in live aboveground biomass in intact African tropical forests has been stable for the three decades to 2015, at 0.66 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year (95 per cent confidence interval 0.53–0.79), in contrast to the long-term decline in Amazonian forests 6 . Therefore the carbon sink responses of Earth’s two largest expanses of tropical forest have diverged. The difference is largely driven by carbon losses from tree mortality, with no detectable multi-decadal trend in Africa and a long-term increase in Amazonia. Both continents show increasing tree growth, consistent with the expected net effect of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide and air temperature 7 – 9 . Despite the past stability of the African carbon sink, our most intensively monitored plots suggest a post-2010 increase in carbon losses, delayed compared to Amazonia, indicating asynchronous carbon sink saturation on the two continents. A statistical model including carbon dioxide, temperature, drought and forest dynamics accounts for the observed trends and indicates a long-term future decline in the African sink, whereas the Amazonian sink continues to weaken rapidly. Overall, the uptake of carbon into Earth’s intact tropical forests peaked in the 1990s. Given that the global terrestrial carbon sink is increasing in size, independent observations indicating greater recent carbon uptake into the Northern Hemisphere landmass 10 reinforce our conclusion that the intact tropical forest carbon sink has already peaked. This saturation and ongoing decline of the tropical forest carbon sink has consequences for policies intended to stabilize Earth’s climate. Unlike Amazonian forests, African forests have maintained their carbon sink until recently but by 2030 the African carbon sink will have shrunk by 14 per cent and the Amazonian sink will reach almost zero.

It has been more than 20 years since Brazil's 1988 Constitution formally established the Unified Health System (Sistema Unico de Saude, SUS). Building on reforms that started in the 1980s, the SUS represented a significant break with the past, establishing health care as a fundamental right and duty of the state and initiating a process of fundamentally transforming Brazil's health system to achieve this goal. This report aims to answer two main questions. First is have the SUS reforms transformed the health system as envisaged 20 years ago? Second, have the reforms led to improvements with regard to access to services, financial protection, and health outcomes? In addressing these questions, the report revisits ground covered in previous assessments, but also brings to bear additional or more recent data and places Brazil's health system in an international context. The report shows that the health system reforms can be credited with significant achievements. The report points to some promising directions for health system reforms that will allow Brazil to continue building on the achievements made to date. Although it is possible to reach some broad conclusions, there are many gaps and caveats in the story. A secondary aim of the report is to consider how some of these gaps can be filled through improved monitoring of health system performance and future research. The introduction presents a short review of the history of the SUS, describes the core principles that underpinned the reform, and offers a brief description of the evaluation framework used in the report. Chapter two presents findings on the extent to which the SUS reforms have transformed the health system, focusing on delivery, financing, and governance. Chapter three asks whether the reforms have resulted in improved outcomes with regard to access to services, financial protection, quality, health outcomes, and efficiency. The concluding chapter presents the main findings of the study, discusses some policy directions for addressing the current shortcomings, and identifies areas for further research.

The article describes the rise of unmarried cohabitation in Latin American countries during the last 30 years of the twentieth century, both at the national and regional levels. It documents that this major increase occurred in regions with and without traditional forms of cohabitation alike. In addition, the striking degree of catching up of cohabitation among the better-educated population segments is illustrated. The connections between these trends and economic (periods of high inflation) and cultural (reduction of stigmas in ethical domains) factors are discussed. The conclusion is that the periods of inflation and hyperinflation may have been general catalysts, but no clear indications of correlation were found between such economic factors and the rise in cohabitation. The shift toward more tolerance for hitherto stigmatized forms of conduct (e.g., homosexuality, euthanasia, abortion, single-parent household) is in line with the rise of cohabitation in regions of Argentina, Chile, and Brazil where cohabitation used to be uncommon. Further rises in cohabitation during the first decade of the twenty-first century are expected in a number of countries (e.g., Mexico) despite conditions of much lower inflation.

Look to Brazil for safe, stable investments As the future of the American economy seems to get bleaker by the day, it is tempting to look abroad for business opportunities. Europe and Asia don't provide much hope, but what about somewhere that's both closer to home and sunny year-round? In Brazil is the New America: How Brazil Offers Upward Mobility in a Collapsing World, James D. Davidson shows that the current financial situation in Brazil is a haven for those looking to make money in a world in turmoil. With a population just 62 percent the size of that of the US, Brazil has added 15,023,633 jobs over the past eight years, while the US has lost millions. In a world burdened by bankrupt governments and aging populations, Brazil is solvent, with two people of working age for every dependent. In a world of \"Peak Oil\" Brazil is energy independent, with 70 billion barrels of oil, 60% of the world's unused arable land, and 15% of its fresh water. Comparatively non-leveraged—and with significant room for growth and expansion, as well as vast natural resources, Brazil is a haven of opportunity.

Between 1960 and 2000, fertility fell sharply in Brazil, but this transition was unevenly distributed in space and time. Using Bayesian spatial statistical methods and microdata from five censuses, we develop and apply a procedure for fitting logistic curves to the fertility transitions in more than 500 small regions of Brazil over this 40-year period. Doing so enables us to map the main features of the Brazilian fertility transition in considerable detail. We detect early declines in some regions of the country and document large differences between early and late transitions in regard to both the initial level of fertility and the speed of the transition. We also use our results to test hypotheses regarding changes in the level of development at the onset of the ferility transition and identify a temporary stall in the Brazilian transition that occurred in the late 1990s. A web site with project details is at http://schmert.net/BayesLogistic.

Domestically funded (and performed) research and development (R&D) has historically been a major source of productivity gains in U.S. agriculture, and a principal source of R&D spillovers to the rest of the world. In the waning decades of the 20th century, U.S. policymakers opted to ratchet down the rate of growth in public support for food and agricultural R&D. As the 21st century unfolds, slowing growth has given way to real cutbacks, reversing the accumulation of U.S.-sourced public R&D capital over most of the previous century and more. The 2014 Farm Bill did little to reverse these long-run research funding trajectories—politicians failed to heed the economic evidence about the still substantial social payoffs of that research and the consequent slowdown in U.S. agricultural productivity growth associated with the spending slowdown. Meanwhile, R&D spending by other countries has been moving in different directions. We present new evidence that today's middle-income countries—notably China, Brazil, and India— are not only growing in relative importance as producers of agricultural innovations through investments in public R&D, they are also gaining considerable ground in terms of their share of privately performed research of relevance for agriculture. The already substantive changes in global public and private R&D investment trajectories are accelerating. If history is any guide to the future, these changing R&D trajectories could have profound consequences for the competitiveness of U.S. agriculture in the decades ahead.

In this paper, the Curitiba-centred narrative on the success of its urban planning experience will be qualified in light of the complexities of its metropolitan development trajectory. It will be claimed that the institutional vacuum that surrounds Brazilian metropolitan areas in general, and Greater Curitiba in particular, has been intensified by the emergence of a competitive and decentralised state spatial regime, which has consolidated a fragmented and neo-localist system of governance. Preliminary empirical evidence will be provided on the challenges that are being faced within the new regime in articulating socio-spatial, economic and environmental strategies in the direction of a more sustainable metropolitan future.

Finds that Brazil is a significant international actor whose influence on global issues is likely to increase and recommends that U.S. policymakers and others recognize its global standing and work with Brazil to develop complementary policies. Figures, References.

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.