|
|||||||||||
|
CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in Brazil in the early years of the 21st Century. Some of
these links may lead to websites that present allegations that are
unsubstantiated, misleading or even false. No attempt has been
made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of poverty are of particular
interest to you. You might be
interested in exploring the relationship between distribution of labor and
per-capita GDP, for example. Perhaps
your paper could focus on life expectancy or infant mortality. Other factors of interest might be
unemployment, literacy, access to basic services, etc. On the other hand, you might choose to
include some of the possible outgrowths of poverty such as Human Trafficking,
Street Children,
or even Prostitution. There is a lot to the subject of
Poverty. Scan other countries as well
as this one. Draw comparisons between
activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. *** Extreme Weather *** According
to a recent article from MSN, heavy rainfall caused landslides and submerged
neighborhoods, a hospital, a public transit line, and a highway, resulting in
more than a dozen deaths. Another article from China Daily reports that the
Amazon basin is experiencing its lowest rainfall in years, which is having a
devastating impact on the region’s rivers and biodiversity. Finally, BNamericas reports that Brazil is investing $1.3 billion
in 2024 to mitigate the effects of extreme weather events. – Microsoft BING Copilot *** ARCHIVES *** The
World Factbook - Brazil U.S. Central Intelligence Agency CIA www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/br.html [accessed 10 November 2020] World Factbook
website has moved to ---> www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/brazil/ [accessed 5 January 2021] Brazil
is the eighth-largest economy in the world, but is recovering from a
recession in 2015 and 2016 that ranks as the worst in the country’s history.
In 2017, Brazil`s GDP grew 1%, inflation fell to historic lows of 2.9%, and
the Central Bank lowered benchmark interest rates from 13.75% in 2016 to 7%. GDP -
per capita (PPP): $15,600 (2017
est.) Labor
force - by occupation: agriculture:
9.4% industry:
32.1% services: 58.5% (2017 est.) Unemployment
rate: 12.8% (2017
est.) Population
below poverty line: 4.2% (2016
est.) Maternal
mortality rate: 60 deaths/100,000 live births (2017 est.) Infant
mortality rate: total: 15.9 deaths/1,000 live births Life
expectancy at birth: total population: 74.7 years Drinking
water source: improved: total: 98.2% of
population Physicians
density: 2.17 physicians/1,000 population (2017) Sanitation
facility access: improved: total: 88.3% of
population Electricity
access: electrification - total population: 100% (2016) The
Borgen Project - Brazil borgenproject.org/category/brazil/ [accessed 21 January 2021] The Borgen Project works with U.S. leaders to utilize the United
States’ platform behind efforts toward improving living conditions for the
world’s poor. It is an innovative,
national campaign that is working to make poverty a focus of U.S. foreign
policy. It believes that leaders of
the most powerful nation on earth should be doing more to address global
poverty. From ending segregation to providing women with the right to vote,
nearly every wrong ever righted in history was achieved through advocacy. The
Borgen Project addresses the big picture, operating
at the political level advancing policies and programs that improve living
conditions for those living on less than $1 per day. ~
Healthcare In Brazil: Government And Technology borgenproject.org/healthcare-in-brazil/ ~
The Fight Against Child Poverty In Brazil borgenproject.org/child-poverty-in-brazil/ ~
Examining The History Of Poverty In The Amazon Rainforest borgenproject.org/poverty-in-the-amazon-rainforest/ ~
Innovations In Poverty Eradication In Brazil borgenproject.org/innovations-in-poverty-eradication-in-brazil/ ~
The Strong Correlation Between Disability And Poverty borgenproject.org/correlation-between-disability-and-poverty/ ‘Tragic
combination’: Millions go hungry amid Brazil COVID crisis Sam Cowie, Aljazeera News, Sao Paulo, 11 Apr 2021 www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/11/tragic-combination-millions-go-hungry-brazil-covid-crisis [accessed 12 April 2021] 19
million Brazilians have gone hungry during the pandemic, new study finds, as
food insecurity is also on the rise. Experts
point to high unemployment exacerbated by the coronavirus, cuts and
reductions to social programmes and sharp price
increases on basic food staples as some of the reasons behind the problem. Ana
collects and sells recyclable goods three times a week, but she is lucky if
she makes $3.50 (BR$20) a day. Meanwhile, the 5kg bag of rice she currently
has to feed herself and her husband – and that was a donation from a local
Catholic church – costs $4.40 (BR$25) at the local supermarket. Basic
food prices have rocketed during the pandemic, which has had a
disproportionate effect on poorer citizens. According to the Brazilian
Institute of Geography and Statistics, in one year, the price of a kilogramme of rice shot up by nearly 70 percent, while
black beans, potatoes, red meat, milk and soybean oil rose by 51, 47, 30, 20
and 87 percent, respectively. In
food-rich Brazil, people go hungry as pandemic rages Today, Sao Paulo, 2 April 2021 www.todayonline.com/world/food-rich-brazil-people-go-hungry-pandemic-rages [accessed 6 April 2021] The
lines of homeless and other needy people waiting for free meals in the streets
of Brazil are growing longer as the Covid-19 pandemic rages out of control. The
global health crisis has left more than 315,000 people dead in the country
and millions unemployed, and has pushed many people into poverty and hunger,
who did not know such pain before. Brazil plunges into
Covid chaos while church fights the ‘hunger
pandemic’ Filipe Domingues, America Magazine, 25 March 2021 [accessed 26 March 2021] “I’d
rather stand in the soup kitchen line than stop paying the rent and become a
street person,” said one woman, explaining why she began to visit the
tent-kitchens sponsored by the Franciscan Solidarity Service, known by its
Portuguese acronym Sefras, in São Paulo, Brazil.
Her testimony, shared by Sefras president José
Francisco, O.F.M, is just one of the thousands of stories of Brazilians who
are falling into poverty—or returning to it—as Covid-19 rages across the
country. “At
first, only the most vulnerable were starving, but the hunger queue is
growing each day. It’s a hunger pandemic,” Father Francisco said. Sefras works both in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro among
the homeless. It is currently providing 2,800 meals a day, four times more
than before the pandemic. NGOs
Address Hunger in Brazil During COVID-19 Borgen Magazine, 23 February 2021 www.borgenmagazine.com/address-hunger-in-brazil/ [accessed 23 February 2021] Because
of the pandemic, the unemployment rate in Brazil reached 13.3% in June 2020
(14.9% for women). This is the highest rate it’s been in the past three
years. Ação da Cidadania
predicts that, by the end of 2020, there will be more than 100 million people
in food insecurity. The Brazilian Government did offer a living stipend for
those struggling the most, but it was temporary and not enough to meet the
need. Nonprofit
organizations are combating poverty and aim to address hunger in Brazil
through immediate humanitarian efforts as well as policy advocacy. “UNESCO’s
normal poverty reduction efforts were not sufficient once the pandemic
began,” said Marlova Noleto,
Director of UNESCO in Brazil, in an interview with The Borgen
Project. Now, the organization is distributing credit cards, specifically for
groceries, to mothers in Brazil. Recipients are able to buy whatever foods
best fit their needs during the pandemic. Through
this program, UNESCO has fed more than 1.3 million families and five million
people in Brazil since late February 2020. “While the government is doing a
very poor job in handling the pandemic in Brazil, local civil society and
community groups have been organized, supporting the most vulnerable
communities and leading the way to this crisis,” Bertolucci
said.. The
World Bank in Brazil www.worldbank.org/en/country/brazil/overview [accessed 16 April 2021] Brazil
is projected to fall into its deepest recession on record. However, macroeconomic
framework is expected to remain broadly adequate, albeit with substantial
downside risks, calling for strong fiscal consolidation and adoption of
structural reforms. Looking
back a few years … Advameg, Inc., Encyclopedia of the Nations www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Brazil-ECONOMY.html [accessed 17 December 2020] Inflation
continued to rage in the early 1990s. In 1994 it peaked at 2,700%. That year,
the finance minister, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (later president), introduced
a new currency, the real, and a new economic plan called the Real Plan. The
plan featured privatization of state-owned industries, lowering of tariffs,
and the abolition of Brazil's unique and counterproductive wage-inflation
indexing, which had sent prices on a seemingly endless upward spiral. By
ending the hyperinflation of the past decades, the government greatly
increased the standard of living of millions of Brazilians, allowed
businesses to plan for the medium term in an environment of stability, and
created a class of economically stable consumers. Inflation had dropped to
only6.9% by 1997, and has since remained in single digits. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT
COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Prof. Martin
Patt, "Poverty - Brazil", http://gvnet.com/poverty/Brazil.htm,
[accessed <date>] |
