The warring factions in global development

More and more we see two maybe three different sets of methods of global development waring against each other. China, the west, and sometimes Brazil fight to prove who is doing the most good.

China will help countries develop as long as they get something in return. The West demands changes to other countries so their markets will soon see something in return. While Brazil seems intent on showing other nations what has worked for them. They are new to this process, so we have yet to see what they will get in return.

We see this contrast in a big way in the country of Angola. China develops fast, yet few
Angolans are pleased with their work. Brazil cooperates with the Angolan people on development, yet it makes it harder for them to do it on their own. Inter Press Service writer Mario Osava gives us this on the ground viewpoint. 

Today, 35 years later, it is the excesses and glaring contrasts that shock the visitor to this city in southwestern Africa. Shiny new cars on brand-new roads and highways lined by thousands of still-empty or half-built office buildings, apartment blocks and residential towers stand in sharp contrast to the sprawling slums around the city.

Signs on construction sites written in Chinese clearly reflect the Asian giant’s high level of participation in the construction of today’s new Angola.

The most ambitious project carried out by companies from China is the Nova Cidade de Kilamba (Kilamba New City), a huge development designed to house half a million people, 20 km south of downtown Luanda.

When it is completed, the new neighbourhood will have more than 80,000 apartments built for large families – the norm in Angola – in buildings five to 13 storeys high. The development is also to be fitted out with dozens of schools, child care centres, health clinics and shops.

Nearly one-quarter of the buildings have been completed. But almost all of them are empty, even though more than 3,000 apartments were already available when the development was inaugurated in July 2011.

Also involved in building the new city are Brazilian firms, especially construction giant Odebrecht, which is in charge of key projects like electricity and water grids and the construction of roads.

The foreign presence in the massive new developments “is not something to be admired, because it shows that there are no national companies with the capacity to build them,” said one of Angola’s most prominent writers, Artur Pestana, better known as Pepetela, who is also a professor of sociology.

“The Chinese build faster, they work round-the-clock shifts, and they offer almost interest-free long-term loans,” he said. But they employ few Angolan workers and “there are many complaints about the quality of their construction work,” he added.

Meanwhile, Brazilian companies “apparently learned their lesson from a few initial fiascos which made them the butt of national jokes, and they now stand out for the quality of their work,” which enables them to compete with the Chinese, said the author, who has published many historical novels that are critical of the government of José Eduardo dos Santos, president since 1979.

...

It was the first non-oil company from Brazil to begin to operate in Angola with a “long-term outlook,” said Victor Fontes, director general of the Angolan company Elektra, which specialises in power and water grids. He said this had the positive effect of attracting other firms also interested in the long haul, instead of just short-term opportunities.

The director of institutional relations at Odebrecht Angola, Alexandre Assaf, told IPS that the consortium is committed to “continuity” in Angola, above and beyond the effects of wars or the global economic crisis.

Five years ago, only nine percent of the “strategic posts” in the company were held by Angolans – a proportion that has risen to 41 percent, he noted, to illustrate the company’s commitment to local development.

Children forced by Poverty to Work

Of the greatest tragedies of poverty is that inflicted upon children.  Children who grow up in poverty are often not only lack development such as education, but can be forced into the workforce at a much earlier age than they should be.  This tends to perpetrate the cycle of poverty - family is poor, so children must work instead of grow, which leads them to be unable to pull themselves and their family out of poverty, so their children must work...etc

This is the problem facing children in Brazil...

More than 1 million children ages 10 to 14 still forced by poverty to work in Brazil

"The Folha de S.Paulo newspaper says Wednesday that its analysis of preliminary 2010 census figures compiled by Brazil’s government statistics agency shows that more than 1 million children between the ages of 10 and 14 were working last year..."

Audio: Brazil's President Vows To End Poverty For Millions

From NPR, a story about Brazil's goal to lift everyone within its borders out of poverty.

Brazil works to keep AIDS drug price low

Generic versions of the anti-retroviral drugs given to AIDS patients have been a big help in reducing the number of deaths from the disease. The inexpensive generic versions of the ARV drugs can be distributed to more people who need them at a lower cost. Despite the lifesaving benefit, the governments of rich nations often try to block access to the generic versions of the drugs. They do this to protect the interest of the pharmaceutical companies that hold patents for ARVs.

From the Inter Press Service we take another look at this battle over bringing ARV drugs to the people from the viewpoint of Brazil. Writer Elizabeth Whitman says Brazil has been able to produce generic ARVs for their health program and is fighting in the free trade arena to keep doing so.

Generic drugs worldwide have played a significant role in HIV treatment because they are more affordable than brand-name drugs. They have also served as competition to bring down the price of non- generics.

The problem is that developed countries with corporations that hold patents for ARV medicines have often resisted the production of generic drugs by pushing for stricter intellectual property rights, such as longer patent terms, in free trade agreements and other negotiations.

But a study conducted by Oxfam on a free trade agreement between the U.S. and Jordan concluded that the TRIPS-plus rules in the agreement had contributed to increases in medicine prices, and that the rules "will delay or prevent use of public health safeguards to reduce he price of new medicines in the future."

Developing countries less able to afford expensive brand name drugs have pushed back, taking advantage of flexibilities - fairly and legally - within the World Trade Organization's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. One of the flexibilities allows governments to issue compulsory licenses to manufacture or import generic versions of drugs for public health purposes.

Brazil has been a leader in taking advantage of these flexibilities, and its efforts have paid off. In the early 2000s, a WTO panel ruled that for the Brazilian government to allow Brazilian firms to copy patented foreign pharmaceutical products and sell them as generics was acceptable, and did not violate the TRIPS agreement, according to Roy Nelson, associate professor at the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

The European Union and the United States have fought most diligently for stricter intellectual property rights, known as TRIPS plus provisions. TRIPS plus provisions were a hot topic of debate during the High Level Meeting on AIDS held at the United Nations in New York at the beginning of this month.

These additional restrictions have proved a stumbling block in other arenas as well. Specifically, free trade negotiations between the EU and Mercosur, a bloc of Latin American countries, stalled yet again last week.

According to Scripintelligence, a news, analysis, and data provider for the pharmaceutical industry, and MercoPress, a South Atlantic news agency, Mercosur countries, Brazil included, are reluctant to accept EU demands for stricter patent rights, although this concern was not the only cause reason negotiations failed to proceed.

"Negotiations between Mercosur and the EU to suspend tariff and nontariff barriers between the economic blocs may inhibit local production of drugs, especially generics," Padilha told IPS. In order to ensure the affordability of HIV/AIDS drugs, the Brazilian government, he said, "adopts strategies for negotiating prices" with companies holding drug patents.

The Food and Agriculture Organization elects a new chief

The Food and Agriculture Organization elected a new chief yesterday. The 191 member nations voted to select Brazilian Josè Graziano da Silva to succeed Jacques Diouf. Many food security advocates applaud the appointment because of his experience in leading agricultural reforms in the fast growing country of Brazil.

From the Inter Press Service, writer Sabina Zaccaro gives us some background on de Silva.

The new chief succeeds Senegalese Jacques Diouf, who was first elected in 1993. The new director-general takes over in January 2012 and will remain in charge until July 2015. Following a recently revised rule, he is only eligible for one additional four-year term, while Diouf has been elected to three consecutive six-year terms.

Economist Jose Graziano da Silva, who was FAO's regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, had served as food security minister under former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. In that position, he played a key role in the "Zero Hunger" government initiative that brought about a significant decrease in malnutrition in Brazil.

Working closely with civil society, and recognising the central role of women in agriculture, the programme contributed to lifting an estimated 24 million people out of extreme poverty, and to reducing malnutrition by 25 percent in the country, according to official figures.

Graziano's past success gives hope to civil society organisations, who largely expect an era of consultation and inclusion.

"By supporting smallholder agriculture, Brazil is tackling hunger successfully. We expect Graziano to bring the same approach to the FAO," Marco de Ponte, secretary general of ActionAid Italy, told IPS.

"In the Diouf era the common thinking was that transferring technical knowledge in agriculture was enough to fight hunger," de Ponte said. "But hunger is largely determined by political choices related to the food market, and hunger grows where you have unfair access to production."

Video: 'Uncontacted' tribe found in Brazil's Amazon

This is sort of off topic, but we found it fascinating. From Al Jazeera, this video shows a newly discovered Brazilian indigenous tribe that has never been contacted by the outside world before.

Brazilians rising out of poverty feel less ashamed of ethnicity

Brazil has been one of the fastest growing economies in recent years. The growth has helped a lot of people climb out of poverty. Along with moving up the economic ladder, a lot of the shame and hopelessness associated with it has left those people as well. One unlikely place that boost in self-esteem is showing up in how people fill out census questions.

From this CNN story that we found at WPTZ, writer Mariano Castillo explains this phenomenon.

Although the birthrates of blacks and pardos -- the Brazilian term for mestizos, or people of mixed European and Native American heritage -- remain higher than for whites, experts don't cite that as the reason for the shift. Instead, they say that more Brazilians than ever are self-identifying as black or pardo, whereas in the past they would have checked off the box for "white."

"During this decade we have been noticing this increase in people declaring themselves black and pardo," Ana Saboia, a researcher at Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, or IBGE, told CNN. The institute oversees the census.

In the most recent census, 7.5% of Brazilians identified themselves as black, and 43% pardo.

The trend is in line with a national public discussion of race that has raised self-consciousness, she said.

Brazil is enjoying a period of growth that, despite the global economic downturn, has pulled thousands of people out of poverty. The rising incomes may be helping to dispel and reject associations that exist in Brazilian society between poverty and skin color.

"In the past, people would have been ashamed to say, 'I am mestizo,' or 'I am black,' because of the link to poverty," Saboia said.

Read more: http://www.wptz.com/news/28257173/detail.html#ixzz1PXP9I2T0

Small development projects funded by middle income countries

The middle income countries of India, South Africa and Brazil have a joint international development fund to help fund projects for even poorer nations. The annual budget for this fund is only three million dollars. Due to the small budget, the IBSA Fund really tries to make the most of it's development dollar. Total budgets for most projects stay right around a half a million dollars. With US Aid and the Gates Foundation doing a lot of talk about funding projects the bring the most value form their money, there might be some lessons found within the IBSA Fund.

From the IPS, writer Marina Penderis gives us a few examples of projects funded by the IBSA.

The neighbourhood of Carrefour Feuilles in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, has a history of violent gang conflict. In 2006 clashing members of that community were brought together through a waste collection and recycling scheme.

The budget for the initial 14-month project – one of the first supported by the IBSA Fund – was only 550,000 dollars, but IBSA is proud of the return on its investment.

The venture generates employment, reduces incidence of disease, prevents flood risk from garbage-clogged canals and, by recycling paper products into cooking bricks, even has a green effect. IBSA says it also has reduced violence in Carrefour Feuilles – and states that as being the main purpose of the project.

"The project provides a structure for people, who are traditionally from rival groups, to work together," explains Fernando Sena from the Brazilian Embassy in South Africa in an interview with IPS. "It employs 385 neighbourhood residents, including 207 women. Now 150,000 people benefit from improved sanitation."

The Carrefour Feuilles solid waste initiative was renewed after its initial run.

"The earthquake (that hit Haiti in 2010) didn't stop the project," says Sena. "And a study has been done to replicate it in East Timor."

Simultaneous to the first phase of the Haiti project, the IBSA Fund also started working with tiny West African state Guinea-Bissau's ministry of agriculture to train over 4,500 farmers (half of them women) in improved techniques of rice cultivation and citrus fruit and mango production, including in the monsoon-like rainy season. The budget for the first phase of this initiative was 498,750 dollars.

"This project is already in phase two and expanding to more villages," says Sena. "The idea is that the project will also provide solar energy equipment to five villages."

Video: Rio's poor worried about redevelopment

From Al Jazeera, a video on the planned demolition of shanty towns in Rio de Janeiro to prepare for the World Cup and Olympics.

DFID issues a new report on cash transfer programs

Governments around the world are implementing a new strategy to fight poverty called "cash transfer" programs. They are called cash transfer because they give a small amount of money to families below the poverty line. The money is small enough that they will not be able to live on that money alone and will still need to find work. Still, the money is more than welcome to poor families who can then use it to supplement other incomes and have more money for food and medicine.

The most famous of the cash transfer programs is based in Brazil called "Bolsa Familia." The Brazilian government has an added feature to their cash transfer program because families have to meet certain conditions before receiving the money. The conditions range from keeping good attendance in school, or going for medical checkups regularly. Many governments around the world have borrowed from Bolsa Familia to set up their own cash transfer programs.

Cash Transfer programs are beginning to catch the attention of rich donor nations for their development aid contributions. The UK’s Department for International Development has just released a study on the effectiveness of cash transfer programs. OXFAM's Duncan Green relayed the summary of the report in his blog, From Poverty to Power.

“Over the past 15 years, a ‘quiet revolution’ has seen governments in the developing world invest in increasingly large-scale cash transfer programmes. These are now estimated to reach between 0.75 and 1 billion people. While this expansion began in middle-income countries (MICs), governments in low-income countries (LICs) have also started to develop cash transfer programmes.

This rapid spread has been driven by a range of forces. Firstly, there is growing recognition that while global economic integration brings poor households opportunities, it also brings increased exposure to stresses (e.g. volatile food and fuel prices) and shocks, which can push many into poverty. In this context, transfers are seen to play a role in reducing transitory poverty.

Secondly, there is growing evidence that transfers can help people escape chronic, often inter-generational poverty; in part by leveraging gains in non-income, human development outcomes.

Finally, there is recognition that in situations of chronic food insecurity (e.g. Ethiopia), institutionalised transfer programmes are more efficient and effective than repeated annual emergency food aid.

There is convincing evidence from a number of countries that cash transfers can reduce inequality and the depth or severity of poverty. There is an increasing volume of research into how cash transfers might support ‘graduation’ from poverty for those of working age. Evidence from Bangladesh and Ethiopia suggests that transfers are unlikely to achieve graduation without complementary interventions (e.g. skills training or agricultural extension) to promote livelihoods.

There is robust evidence from numerous countries that cash transfers have leveraged sizeable gains in access to health and education services…. Cash transfers also have a proven role in supporting specific vulnerable groups (people living with HIV and AIDS, orphans and vulnerable children).

Using business to prevent deforestation

The blog Next Million has introduced us to a business that tries to provide an income from the Amazon rain forest. Ouro Verde attempts to prevent deforestation of the Amazon by selling products made from Brazilian Nuts that grow deep within the forest. Entrepreneur Luis Laranja believes this is the best way to save the rain forest and says his company has already protected 1.3 million hectors from being burned down.

From Next Million, writer Tracy Elsen profiles Ouro Verde.

Laranja believes that the Mato Grosso's Brazil nut trees, combined with the power of small business, can help stop deforestation. A longtime environmental activist, Laranja left his job as a professor eight years ago and moved to the Amazon rainforest to start Ouro Verde, a sustainable Brazil nut company. Ouro Verde buys, processes and sells high-quality Brazil nuts and products, including Brazil nut meal, extra virgin oil, and butter.

Laranja's company is transforming the living rainforest into a source of income for Mato Grosso's rural residents. "I really believe that what we have to use to preserve the forests is the market," he says. "If the forest does not provide money for the people, it will be impossible to save it." Ouro Verde creates special relationships with local indigenous and small-holder farmer communities that collect and supply Brazil nuts. By eliminating the high profit margin "middle man" between the company and local suppliers, Ouro Verde can pay its suppliers fair wages and thus make the living forest more valuable than lumber exploitation or landclearing.

Ouro Verde also provides training to those involved in Brazil nut collection to help improve collection, storage, and transportation, ensuring the company receives premium quality and suppliers receive a premium price. Thanks to its practices, the company earned organic certification for its entire product line from Ecocert Brasil, including certificates that address the specific requirements of the Brazilian, European and American markets.

The economic value provided by Brazil nut trees also protects the surrounding trees. Brazil nut trees produce at their highest levels when they live in healthy, primary forests. Therefore, nut collectors are incentivized to protect entire forests surrounding Brazil nut trees in order to access the largest, best-quality crops.

Brazil claims to have eliminated childhood malnutrition

Brazil is claiming that that have met another of the Millennium Development Goals by eliminating extreme malnutrition from the country. Since 1989, Brazil says that they cut in half the following: number of people living on less than a dollar, the number infant deaths, and deaths of women during childbirth.

From Fox News Latino, we read more about the achievements being announced from Brazil.

The proportion of underweight Brazilian children under 5 fell by 7.1 percent to 1.8 percent between 1989 and 2006, thus achieving one of the first goals in the eradication of poverty and hunger set by the United Nations to be reached by the year 2015, the Health Ministry said.

Brazil has also substantially reduced the number of people living on an income equivalent to $1 a day, has shrunk the gap between rich and poor, and has increased the employment rate, all areas contemplated in the Millennium Goals.

Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao said that Brazil should reach the goal of reducing the childhood-mortality rate by 2012, three years before the U.N. target date, if the country "stays its present course."

According to the report, infant mortality fell by 58 percent in Brazil between 1990 and 2008, to the point of having 22.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births, and within three years should fall to 17.8 deaths, which would mean achieving the goal set by the United Nations.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2010/12/15/brazil-claims-eradicated-extreme-poverty/#ixzz18Cq3Hb91

Improving health, education and poverty at the same time

Other countries are coming to Brazil for advice. The success of the Bolsa Familia program has other countries looking to start up similar programs, even New York City started their own wealth transfer program.

Bolsa Familia gives money to the poorest families of Brazil with some stipulations attached. In order to continue receiving the money, the family's children have to remain in school, and the family has to have routine doctor visits. So Bolsa Familia tackles the issues of health, education and poverty simultaneously.

From the Guardian, writer Madeleine Bunting tells us why even Brittan is considering stating up a similar program

Probably the biggest and best known of all the cash transfer schemes in the developing world is the Bolsa Familia in Brazil. Since 2003, 12 million families have joined the scheme and receive small amounts of money (around $12 a month). Inequality has been cut by 17% in just five years, which is perhaps one of the most dramatic achievements in welfare ever recorded. The poverty rate has fallen from 42.7% to 28.8%.

Such is the fascination in this "social technology" that Brazil is now being sought for advice on cash transfer programmes by countries across Africa (Ghana, Angola, Mozambique), the Middle East (Egypt, Turkey) and Asia (including India). Even New York City has implemented a version of the programme.

"It's social policy diplomacy," suggested one of the ministers involved in the Brazilian programme, Dr Romulo Paes de Sousa, when I caught up with him in London after speaking at the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex earlier this week.

He's delighted by the interest. "Brazil is developing a new model of donor whereby we give expertise as well as aid. Brazil is already one of the largest donors of food aid in the world." He is also struck by the paradox that Brazil is expanding its welfare state just as Europe is cutting back on welfare.

There are some aspects of the programme, he explains, which have attracted particular interest. The first is conditionality. The payments are dependent on the family's children staying in school until 17, and attendance must be at least 85% up to 14 years and 75% for the remainder. Another form of conditionality is that children get the full set of vaccinations in their first five years and that mothers attend pre and post-natal care.
...

Inevitably, the programme has led to criticism that it will generate a dependency culture. Unlike another comparable programme in Mexico, it is not time limited. But Dr Paes points out that the level of support is low so it is designed to supplement income from a job, never replace it. It helps that studies of its impact show how the injection of this cash into particularly poor communities is helping stimulate the local economy. Other studies have shown that the vast bulk of the money is spent on necessities such as food, school supplies, clothing and shoes - that helped squash arguments that if you gave money to the poor, they would simply spend it on alcohol.

Brazil to bring the good news of Bolsa Familia to the UN

There will be at least one state leader who will address the UN Millennium Development Goal assembly with good news. Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to tell the world that they are way ahead of the 2015 deadline of meeting the goals.

From the Inter Press Service, reporter Thalif Deen writes about what has attributed to Brazil's success.

Brazil attributes much of its success on the government's cash transfer programme called "Bolsa Familia". Since 2003, the ministry has invested over 103 billion dollars in this social protection programme, reaching out to more than 70 million people living in poverty.

Marie Pierre Poririer of the U.N. children's agency UNICEF says the world's largest income transfer programme in Brazil has resulted in significant progress in education, health, social development and the fight against hunger.

"This single programme, which focuses on Brazil's poorest social groups, has significantly reduced poverty and social inequality in Brazil, and has been recognised nationally and internationally for its success," says Poririer, who is based in Brazil.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the European Forum last week that the global financial crisis has resulted in "grave setbacks" for MDGs worldwide. This year alone, an additional 64 million people will fall into extreme poverty, he warned.

But Brazil apparently has survived the global financial crisis - at least judging by its economic performance.

Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega was quoted last week as saying the country's economy will grow by at least 7.0 percent this year, which he described as "the best performance in 24 years, and without inflation."

Of the world's biggest economies, only China is doing better, he conceded.

Another look at Brazil's Bolsa Familia

Bolsa Familia is a highly regarded conditional cash transfer program in Brazil. Conditional because it places certain conditions on families that they have to fulfill in order to receive the money. The conditions include keeping the children in school or getting them to doctor or dentist checkups regularly. Despite the successes of Bolsa Familia, there is some debate within Brazil if the program prevents the parents from going out to look for a job.

From the Global Post, writer Seth Kugel profiles one Bolsa Familia family and looks into it's effect on work.

On a typical night, Janaina Alves da Silva and Jose Cicero dos Santos serve their six school-age children a dinner of cuscuz, a traditional corn porridge from the Brazilian northeast, along with fried eggs and coffee to wash it down. All told, the meal costs about three reais, the equivalent of $1.70.

Not bad for a family of eight, but for a household whose only stable income is Brazil’s “Bolsa Familia,” or “Family Stipend” program, the $50 a month they spend on dinner eats up most of the $70 they get from the government to survive.

Bolsa Familia, which reaches more than 12.5 million families across Brazil, has been the signature anti-poverty effort of the Lula administration, which expanded it greatly. Payments, which are tied (at least theoretically) to school attendance, have arguably done more to reduce severe poverty in Brazil than any previous program. The effort has garnered worldwide praise.

Though most Brazilians accept the general concept of the program — no candidate in the current presidential race would dare threaten it — there are bitter debates about its execution and scope, and criticisms of government mismanagement and misuse by families.

Another common criticism is that families decide to live on the payments alone, withdrawing from the labor market. But after spending a day with Dos Santos and Alves da Silva, who spoke openly about their expenditures and budgeting, that seems unlikely. Just to survive, they scramble for part-time work and use their own ingenuity.

They are just one family, of course, but a recent study from the International Policy Center for Inclusive Growth concluded that Bolsa Familia does slightly reduce work incentives, but not so much as to create dependency. (The center is jointly run by the United Nations Development Program and the Brazilian government.)

Some examples of Bolsa Familia helping people in Brazil

A Brazilian program that is getting a lot of attention worldwide is "Bolsa Familia," or the Family Grant, as it's known in English. Bolsa Familia is a conditional cash transfer program, meaning that poor residents of Brazil will receive some money from the government as long as their children stay in school and are kept in good health.

From the BBC, writer Gary Duffy gives us a couple of examples of people benefiting from Bolsa Familia.

"I think it is good and it helps a lot," says Francineide.

"When the money comes it is always better because there are many families in Brazil that depend on it, and even though it is a small amount, it makes a big difference."
Continue reading the main story Ruti Cunha

The new baby is Francineide's second child, and the monthly assistance she receives from Bolsa Familia will now rise to $66.

It helps to supplement the meagre income she gets from selling vegetables.

Further up the road, her father Joao works on a small plot of land and also receives a helping hand from the state in the form of low interest loans.

Critics say the family grant his daughter receives offers financial help, but no clear route to escape from poverty.

Now Bolsa Familia is being tied in to existing projects which target small investors in both the countryside and the city.

Joao is using the money, which he gets from a scheme known as AgroAmigo administered by the state-run Bank of the North-East, to buy the materials he needs.

"It helps me to get water, to buy seeds," he says.

"In the past we used to collect them but you can't do that any more. And this money helps to make things better."

Africa now has less say in World Bank decisions

Voting power in the World Bank has changed to reflect the GDP of individual countries. The World Bank says that emerging nations now have more voting power and influence in Bank decisions. This is great for countries like China, India and Brazil, but Sub-Saharan Africa has lost some of it's voting power.

From the IPS, writer Hilaire Avril has this summary of the changes.

Eighteen sub-Saharan countries have thus lost a measure of their already modest influence in the institution’s decision-making process. Nigeria and South Africa are hardest hit, their voting powers having been decreased by about 10 percent.

Only oil-rich Sudan - whose president has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on suspicion of war crimes - has seen its share of votes increase.

The World Bank, internationally mandated with financing development projects, has long been criticised by civil society and recipient countries as unrepresentative of those it claims to be helping. Sub-Saharan Africa, the target of many of its "poverty reduction" programmes, retains a total of less than six percent of the institution’s voting rights.

Finally responding to critics, the Bank has in recent years indicated some intention towards reforming its governance and making it more inclusive of its purported beneficiaries. Its Istanbul Declaration of October 2009 committed to "protect the voting power of the smallest poor countries".

But on Apr 25, it shuffled voting rights to increase the share of China (by 1.64 percent), South Korea (0.58 percent), Turkey (0.55 percent), Mexico (0.5 percent), and Singapore (0.24 percent). According to the Bank’s own economic definitions, South Korea and Singapore are high-income countries, whereas Mexico and Turkey are upper middle-income countries.

Criticising the adjustments, head of research for anti-poverty campaigner Oxfam, Duncan Green, noted in a blog entry titled "The World Bank breaks its promises on Africa’s voting power" that "the reform reflects the shift in global GDP (gross domestic product), and so benefits the big emerging economies, not the slower growing economies in Africa".

Adds Sebastien Fourmy, who follows global financial institutions at Oxfam’s French chapter: "This reform is an attempt at making nice with the main emerging world players, such as China and Brazil, in the hope that they will contribute a larger share of the Bank’s funding.

"This comes at a point where Europe has growing difficulties in meeting its financial commitments to development," he explains. "European countries have therefore agreed to a minor reduction in their voting powers but most are still clinging to their chairs."

"My Home, My Life" housing program in Brazil

Brazil has begun an ambitious plan to give decent housing to all of the country's slum dwellers. The program called "My Home, My Life" subsidizes the cost of a new home for the homeless and those that live in slums.

The new housing will be built on the outskirts of major cities using private contractors. Brazil is starting with the slums that under threat of mudslides first. The "My Home, My Life" plan has drawn the attention of leaders from other countries who hope to replicate the housing program.

From this Associated Press article that we found at KSAW, writer Marco Sibaja tells us how the program works.

"This is undoubtedly a model that could be used in other countries," said Demostenes Moraes, director of Habitat-Brazil, the Brazilian branch of an international nonprofit devoted to building houses for the poor.

The program, started last year, is part of the social policies that have made President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva one of Brazil's most popular ever - and could help attract votes for his chosen successor, candidate Dilma Rousseff, who trails in the polls going into the October presidential election.
...

Using federal, state and municipal funds, "My Home, My Life" pays 100 percent of the cost of a home for families who earn a maximum of $870 a month (1,530 reals) - three times the minimum monthly wage of $290 (510 reals.) The amount diminishes as participants' salaries rise.

Houses are built by private construction companies, which act as intermediaries with the bank on behalf of customers.

As of February, the government had 670,000 new-home applications in the works and aims to have signed contracts for 1 million homes by the end of this year, Ramos Coelho said,

A second phase of 2 million homes is planned to begin in 2011, she added.

If the program continues at the intended rate, Brazil could erase its shortage of 7 million homes - and hundreds of illegal settlements that have popped up over the years in the South American nation of 190 million people - in the next decade.

Brazil condemns slum houses after rainy season

The recent rainy season in Brazil caused major flooding in the slums of Rio De Janero. The Brazilian government used the flooding as an opportunity to condemn some of the shacks within the slums. Poverty advices theorize it is the governments attempt to clean up the city before it hosts upcoming World Cups and Olympic games.

From the United Arab Emirates The National writer Sharmila Devi talks about the conflict the rainy season created.

A single colour determines the fate of thousands of residents in Rio de Janeiro’s shantytowns, or favelas, after floods killed about 230 people this month.

With a stroke of paint on the side of a shack or house, city officials assessing the damage from record rainfall are deciding who can stay and who must abandon their home. Blue paint means the house is still structurally sound; orange means there is cause for concern; black orders the residents to leave the house.

Although the floods had some effect on all of the city’s six million residents, the worst afflicted are among the one million or so people who dwell in the hillside favelas. They face the biggest hurdles to returning to what passed for normality in the poverty-stricken, drug gang-controlled slums.

The Brazilian government has rushed to try to take control after the floods, aware it is under increasing scrutiny as it prepares to host the football World Cup across the country in 2014 and the Olympics Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Officials issued reassuring statements, saying neither sporting event was likely to face such a disaster because neither would be held during Brazil’s rainy season.

But the floods have highlighted the country’s daunting challenges to upgrade its infrastructure, reduce widespread crime and overhaul a police force widely acknowledged as one of the most corrupt in the world.
...

Flooding caused mudslides and exposed tree roots and fresh red earth in Rocinha’s steep, hillside streets and alleys. At other, even poorer favelas, long neglected by authorities, shacks and houses were swept away. Dozens of homes built on top of a rubbish dump crumbled down a hillside in Niteroi, a town just across the bay from Rio de Janeiro.

Wastewater has flowed down from the favelas to southern Rio, where the city’s elite live and play on the world-famous beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. Brazil’s economic inequality rate ranks among the highest in the world, with an estimated one per cent of the population owning 50 per cent of the wealth.

Eduardo Paes, Rio’s mayor, ordered nearly 50,000 people to evacuate the favelas. The city plans to spend more than one billion reals (Dh2bn) on relocation, reconstruction and reforestation.

An experiment that probably has not changed lives

A few years ago, New York City began a conditional cash transfer program for residents at or below the poverty line. "Conditional" because it only gave money to reward good behavior like seeing the doctor or getting good grades in school. The program was modeled after very successful programs in Brazil and Mexico. However, a new study conducted by the same group that designed New York's program says that it hasn't been life changing.

From this Associated Press story that we found at Google News, writer Sara Kugler tells us more about the study.

The first analysis of New York's effort was released Tuesday by a nonprofit social policy research group called MDRC that also helped design the program. Researchers are also tracking a control group of another 2,400 families that do not receive payments.

New York City's program began in 2007 and has bestowed total of $14 million on 2,400 participating families. The average award per family was $3,000.

The payments, also known as conditional cash transfers, were modeled after successful similar programs in other countries, including Mexico and Brazil. The theory is that the cash rewards reduce immediate hardship for poor people while reinforcing small but significant actions they can take to improve their long-term stability.

Before the city took up the idea, it had never been attempted in the United States.

Participants were offered 22 different incentives to earn money, ranging in value from $20 to $600. Ninety-eight percent of all families earned at least one reward, but just 65 percent achieved payments in every period they were available.

When compared with the control group, 10 percent more families in the reward group had two dental visits per year, 1 percent more had health insurance, 20 percent more had bank accounts and 3 percent fewer used costly services like check cashing.

But fewer people in the reward group held jobs in the first year, and cash rewards had no effect on school performance or attendance for young children.

The rewards also had no effect on test scores or attendance for low-performing high school students, and made only modest differences for higher-achieving students.