Brazil unveils $6.4 billion poverty plan

from the International Herald Tribune

The Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil: President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva unveiled a multibillion-dollar anti-poverty initiative on Monday to provide much-needed infrastructure and jobs in Brazil's poorest regions.

Targeting some 24 million people, including about 1 million small farmers in nearly 1,000 towns across Latin America's largest nation, the government plans to spend some $6.4 billion under the program in 2008 alone.

The program, which must still be approved by Congress, seeks to benefit the 60 regions of Brazil with the lowest rankings on the U.N. Human Development Index.

Speaking in the capital of Brasilia, Silva called it "the second step to ending poverty," following his Family Allowance initiative that since 2003 has paid monthly stipends to more than 11 million poor families with young children.

That program has been credited with reducing poverty in Brazil and secured Silva the loyalty of the nation's poor, but also drew criticisms that he was buying votes.

Silva also vowed to continue the stipends until Brazil does a better job of easing one of the world's widest gaps between the rich and the poor.

University of Brasilia political scientist David Fleischer said the new initiative, dubbed Territories of Citizenship, shows the government recognizes the value of investments in things like schools, clinics and job training, instead of only handouts.

Silva's administration also has its eye on this year's municipal elections and the 2010 presidential vote, Fleischer said: "It's half and half. Half development, and half electoral."

The announcement came a week after Brazil announced that its foreign reserves had exceeded foreign debt.

At the time, Silva said the country could now incur fresh debt to improve crumbling infrastructure and boost employment.