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‘Good for the poor, bad for poverty’ C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S Jonathan De la Cruz 10/20/2010

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

‘Good for the poor, bad for poverty’

C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S
Jonathan De la Cruz
10/20/2010
Romulo Paes Souza, executive secretary of the Brazil Social Development Ministry, the agency tasked to implement the much heralded federal anti-poverty program “Bolsa Familias” cautioned one and all that the plan is not a “magic bullet.” Souza was quoted as having said: “It has helped a lot of our people but it is not going to lift Brazil’s ‘poorest of the poor’ in one sweep or even in the immediate future. It gives them time and the will to battle ‘old poverty’, i.e.., lack of food and basic services, but have to do much more as they also have to battle ‘new poverty,’ i.e., drug addiction, violence, family breakdown and environmental degradation, at the same time. That is the irony of it all. It has done a lot of good but much more needs to be done to lift the millions out of their poverty.”

Souza’s assessment parallels that of a host of Brazilian economists and analysts who described the Bolsa Familias’ plan as a “double edged sword” — good for the poor but bad for poverty. The group going by the name Progresium noted that the program has been used by the outgoing Lula regime as a means to endear itself to the Brazilian masses in a calculated move to perpetuate itself in power. It has succeeded in large measure because it was tied up with a kind of “windfall tax” on a number of goods and services which provided, together with loans from the World Bank, the means by which the program got by. To them, this is an unsustainable proposition especially if it results in the diversion of resources from the core units addressing the basic problems associated with the plague of poverty. Worse, it induces a culture of passivity and laziness both antithetical to the very notion of empowering the poor and getting them to lift themselves and the families by their bootstraps..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20101020com4.html

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