Brazil offers insights into poverty reduction programmes

South American nation has slashed poverty by 23% over two decades.


Our Correspondent December 05, 2012

ISLAMABAD:

Brazil has succeeded in cutting back on poverty from 30% to 7% and has offered to share its experiences with Pakistan.


While addressing a press conference along with Brazilian experts, Brazilian Ambassador Alfredo Leoni said that the exchange of delegations will eventually lead not only to enhanced bilateral cooperation in food security, but other fields as well.


He said that Brazil has the world’s most advanced food security policy, due in large part to its successful rural extension programmes, inter-institution coordination and mobilisation of civil society.


“The issue of poverty is a big challenge, and our experts’ visit to Pakistan has been successful in sharing experiences in tackling poverty alleviation,” he said.


Pakistan Agriculture Research Council Chairman Iftikhar Ahmad said that food prices were on an uptick globally, and Pakistan was facing problems in this regard as more and more people were being pushed under the poverty line.


“We do not want to increase production only, but also wish to tackle the food security crisis,” he said, referring to ‘zero-hunger’ programmes introduced in different countries. “We have discussed experiences with Brazilian experts during the seminar to tackle poverty along these models,” he said.


Alfredo Leoni


Cynthia Jones, deputy director of the World Food Program Center of Excellence in Brazil, said that Brazil had a legal framework and financing programmes for farmers. “We need to engage civil society to understand the problem of hunger and poverty,” she added.


Marcos Lopes, from General Coordination of International Actions to Combat Hunger, talked about the Brazilian government’s programme to counter hunger and poverty. “The Brazilian government has set a minimum price for producers to guarantee incomes,” he said; adding that it also worked at creating more jobs for the poor.


He explained that people used to buy products from large companies, but the institutional mechanism set up now allows consumers to buy from small farmers. “Now, our government has different policies for different producers to guarantee their incomes,” he said. The Brazilian government sometimes buys products through the National Company for Food Supply for storage purposes, or to run social food assistance programmes.


“As the next step, we have invited Pakistani officials to visit Brazil and study our model. The two countries  will soon sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU),”
he added.


Published in The Express Tribune, December 6th, 2012.

COMMENTS (1)

lucas | 11 years ago | Reply

I´m Brazilian,

In ten years the Brazilian HDI don´t grow up, the numbers to classify the people was reduced, so here in Brazil if you earn 1000 Dollars a month, you are rich in the goverment statitics. So with 1000 Dollars here, you can´t pay your bills and live a decent live, just to give a idea, to buy the basic food that you need to go a month, you spend about 200 Dollars.

The goverment adopt populists measures to mask the poverty, not all of this are true.

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