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Consolidation of Democracy |
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ECONOMIC RESULTS
Inflation
Growth
Employment
Fiscal Austerity
Reforms
SOCIAL RESULTS
Education
Health
Agrarian Reform
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On October 3rd 1994 almost 90 million Brazilians went to the polls that elected President Fernando Henrique Cardoso with a majority of 53 percent of the popular vote, for the tenure 1995-1998. The President, one of Brazil’s most prominent social scientists, took office with the disposition of maintaining the continuity of the stabilization programme, started during the period in which he was President Itamar Franco’s Minister of Finance, but with the challenge of promoting further economic and social changes, such as the liberalisation of the economy, promotion of sustainable development and human rights and fiscal, administrative and agrarian reforms.
President Cardoso was re-elected in 1998 for a second four-year term. During his two mandates, President Cardoso achieved important results, both in the economic and the social fields. Here are some examples:
ECONOMIC RESULTS
Inflation
Although the economic plan established in 1994 - Plano Real - proved to be more than a stabilisation plan, the success in the struggle against inflation was its first conquest, one that paved the way for progress in other fields. Taking into account the period from July, 1994, to May, 2000, the average rate of inflation, as measured by the Wide Index of Consumer Prices/IPCA, assessed by the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics — IBGE, has been of but 11.4% per annum, which contrasts with the average of 1,280.9% per annum during the five previous years (1988-1993).
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Growth
One of the most outstanding achievements of Plano Real was to defeat extremely high rates of inflation, and at the same time to ensure significant economic growth during its first four years in force. In fact, from 1994 to 1997, the economy grew at an average annual rate of 3.5%.
The rhythm of growth of the economy decreased as a consequence of the international crises, beyond any doubt amongst the most severe in the second half of the twentieth century, the ones that occurred in 1997 and 1998. Even so, the average growth recorded between 1994 and 1999, of 2.3% of GDP, is significantly higher than the one recorded in the six immediately previous years (1988 to 1993), when GDP expanded, as an average, by only 0.8% per annum.
What is most important, though, is that once the shock waves of the 1997 and 1998 international crises were overcome, growth is back, and on solid grounds. The recovery of the economy consolidated during the first quarter of 2000.
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Employment
The resumption of growth has its consequences in the creation of jobs. In April a record was attained: the generation of over 850 thousand new jobs during the last twelve months, a figure above the one recorded in May, 1995, at the peak of Plano Real, when the previous record occurred.
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Fiscal Austerity
The recovery of the Brazilian economy would not have been possible had it not been for the strong commitment to fiscal austerity (reflected in the growth of the primary surplus from 0% of GDP in 1998 to 3.1% in 1999).
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Reforms
Economic recovery has been accompanied by two major reforms (the Social Security Reform and the Administrative Reform) and by the Fiscal Accountability Act, the foundations of a new fiscal regime
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SOCIAL RESULTS
In a country with striking inequalities such as Brazil, programmes for uprooting poverty and social exclusion are high priorities. In the period from 1990 to 1998, 13 million people crossed the poverty line, thus reducing the percentage of the poor population in the country from 43.8% to 32.7% (the equivalent of 50.1 million inhabitants). The proportion of households without access to basic State services also reduced significantly from 1992 to 1997: those without appropriate water supply services diminished from 25% to 19%; those without sanitary sewage diminished from 48% to 41%; those without electric power diminished from 12% to 7%, and those without garbage collection diminished from 36% to 26%.
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Education
Fernando Henrique Cardoso's Government has defined as a priority in its educational policy the expansion of elementary education. The evolution of indicators on education in Brazil shows highly expressive progress:
- In 1992, 18.2% of children in the age bracket of seven to fourteen were not at school. In 1999, only 4% were not enrolled. The country is very close to providing universal access to elementary education.
- The expansion of elementary education brought about significant growth to the number of enrolments in secondary education: 57.5% from 1994 to 1999.
- The rate of illiteracy of the population above fifteen years of age has reduced from 18.3% to 13.8% from 1990 to 1998.
- The National Programme for School Textbooks has distributed, free of charge, from 1995 to 1999, over 350 million school text books. Only in 1998, around 110 million school text books were distributed to students of elementary and secondary education.
- Programme School TV, established in 1997 covers around one million teachers and 28 million students.
- Programme on Information Technology in Education (PROINFO) accounted for putting in place 30 thousand computers and ancillary equipment in over 2000 schools, thus benefiting around 200 thousand students. By 2001, the target is to put in place 100 thousand computers in six thousand schools.
- The expansion of enrolments in higher education, starting in 1995, was of about 424 thousand.
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Health
The Brazilian health care model is going through deep changes. The main expression of these transformations was the establishment of the Unified Health System (SUS), whose main characteristics are: decentralisation, with a single management at each sphere of Government; the regional character; the participation of society and the exercise of social control by means of collegiate levels of decision making, and the funding by the federal, state and municipality levels.
Likewise, the Basic Care Threshold (PAB) has decentralised services, thus virtually eliminating the possibility of political discrimination and making feasible the control of nepotism and other distorted practises. Federal funds are monthly channelled to municipalities, without the interference of any local authority. Health plans and insurance schemes are now regulated and the National Supplementary Health Agency was created, aimed at controlling and inspecting the sector.
Another major initiative was the emergence on the Brazilian market of the first generic medicines, in January, 2000. Generic medicines are being sold at prices 30 to 55% below those of their brand-name correspondents, with the same therapeutic properties.
The following programmes, either created or expanded since 1995, became instruments of this change:
- Community Health Agent Programme: people from the communities themselves are trained to disseminate information on basic health care. Currently these agents serve 65 million citizens.
- Family Health Programme: started in 1994, this programme ensures care to around 21 million people. From 328 teams, at its very beginning, it has moved to six thousand, in 1999, operating in all regions of the country. During the same period, the number of municipalities served increased from only 55 to two thousand. In 1998, the budget for the two programmes (Community Agents and Family Health) was of R$ 218 million. A year later, it grew to 380 million, with a 74.3% increase. For 2000, there is a forecast of a new increase, this time to R$ 680 million.
- Vaccination Programmes: in a single day, every year, in Brazil, around 20 million children are vaccinated against several diseases, amongst which poliomyelitis. From 1996 to 1999, funds for vaccination campaigns moved from R$ 145 million to R$ 270 million, which allows to increase coverage and to use new pre-emptive vaccines against the flu, pneumonia, German measles, measles, hepatitis B, meningitis, diphtheria and tetanus. Nine million people over the age of 65 are vaccinated against the flu every year.
- AIDS care: Brazil is singled out by the World Health Organisation as an example, because it maintains one of the best AIDS pre-emption programmes in the world. It is one of the few countries that supply free of charge to infected persons the medicines that delay the progress of HIV. The cost of the programme is high, and has reached R$ 487 million in 1999.
- Programme for the Reduction of Infantile Mortality: created in 1995, this programme concentrates actions geared to immunisation, sanitation, nutrition, health care for women and children and the implementation of Programmes Community Agents and Family Health. As a result, from 1990 to 1999, the rate of infantile mortality declined from 50.9 to 36.1 per thousand born alive: a 29.1% drop in nine years.
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Agrarian Reform
Access to land in Brazil also expanded, as a consequence of the implementation, starting in 1995, of the largest agrarian-reform programme of our days. In six years, 400 thousand families have been settled in an area corresponding to twice the territory of Belgium. The National Programme for Strengthening Family Agriculture (PRONAF), now managed by the Ministry of Agrarian Development, grants credits with favoured interest rates to small family farmers, and to co-operative organisations and agricultural associations. Loans for covering the cost of harvests and for animal-husbandry activities have a maximum limit of R$ 5 thousand. From 1995 to 2000, PRONAF has already benefited 1.5 million families, in over 4 thousand municipalities, with total funds of about R$ 10 billion.
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