Brazil’s per capita
income continues to grow. According to the
UN, that index has risen by US$ 40 to US$ 7,700. The problem
is the distribution of income among Brazilians. More than 8
percent of the Brazilian population survives on less than US$1 a
day. Another 22 percent have to make do with a mere US$ 2.
by: Nasi
Brum
A report released by the UN Development Program shows that Brazil’s per capita
income has risen US$ 40, to US$ 7,770 (it was US$ 7,730 last year). The report
goes on to say that Brazil’s problem is to transform wealth into well-being
for the population.
With regard to the Human
Development Index, Brazil is in 72nd place in a list of 177 nations.
Last year the country was in 65th place. If only per capita income
was considered, Brazil would rise to 63rd place on the list. Brazil’s
per capita income is the same as the average for the world, and slightly higher
than the average for Latin America.
However, when other items
are factored in, such as education and life expectancy, Brazil drops in the
list. One problem is that 22 percent of Brazil’s population lives on less
than US$ 2 a day. Another 8.2 percent lives on less than US$1 a day.
In the latest survey,
life expectancy in Brazil rose from 67.8 years to 68. There was a significant
improvement in education, with 92 percent of school age children in the classroom,
and the illiteracy rate went down to 13.6 percent.
At the end, Brazil’s not-so-hot
life expectancy of 68 proved to be the factor that lowered the country’s Human
Development Index. Just to get an idea of how bad that is, if the list was
only based on life expectancy, Brazil would be in 111th place.
The HDI is based on three
factors: education, live expectancy and income. It is a simple method used
to measure development. "It works out to the minimum needs of a population,"
explains José Carlos Libânio, a UN aide. "It measures access
to knowledge, health and money."
Commenting on the results,
presidential Chief of Staff, José Dirceu, said: "We should look
to the future and take this report as another sign that the country needs
urgently to invest in social, sanitation, living and transport programs and
to create jobs and distribute wealth."
UN Campaign
For the first time, Brazil
will participate in a worldwide UN campaign to improve the lives of the planet’s
most needy by drumming up support for what is known as the Millennium Development
Goals, which were set up by 191 countries, including Brazil, in the 2000 UN
General Assembly.
The Millennium Development
Goals, which are supposed to be achieved by the year 2015, include eliminating
extreme poverty and hunger, making elementary education universal, the promotion
of sexual equality, women’s rights and maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS,
malaria and other diseases, protecting the environment and setting up a worldwide
partnership for development.
Brazil’s participation
begins on August 9, the anniversary of the death of social activist, Betinho.
Brazilian Protest
Two years ago, the then
president of the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea), Roberto Martins,
complained saying that Brazil’s Human Development Index was higher than the
UN said it was.
"The UN Development
Program, which conducts the index survey, is using outdated numbers on the
situation in the country. With updated numbers that the Brazilian government
has, the HDI would be 0.769," said Martins. The UNDP says it is 0.757.
UN representative Libânio
explained, however, that the HDI is calculated using statistics from international
agencies and that there are differences between those numbers and numbers
that governments use.
According to him, the
data shows that Brazil is producing more riches, but that it is badly distributed.
Brazil is third in the world in wealth concentration.
A Youngster Look
Young people who took
the writing test in last year’s National High School Examination (Enem/2003)
believe that social inequality is the main cause of violence in Brazil. Hunger,
income maldistribution, and urban ghettoization were identified as factors
that aggravate the process of inequality and lead to violence in society.
The results of the study
were announced this month by the Ministry of Education’s Anísio Teixeira
National Institute of Educational Research (Inep/MEC), in charge of administering
the writing tests.
Last year’s theme was:
"Violence in Brazilian society: how to change the rules of this game?"
Over 600 teachers corrected the compositions written by 1.2 million students
and transcribed the passages they had in common. Lack of schooling and family
disorganization were also mentioned by the students as causes of the problem
of violence.
For Maria Stella Grossi,
a sociologist who teaches in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University
of Brasília (UnB), the fact that the students identified social inequality
as one of the causes of violence demonstrates a degree of maturity in the
way they regard the issue. According to her, young people tend to blame violence
on the poverty of the population.
"It’s a slightly
more sophisticated way for young people to view the problem. It means a slightly
more complex understanding of the issue, since it ends up condemning the poor
population as the source of violence," judges the sociologist, who has
been studying society’s opinion on violence for over 10 years.
From her standpoint, despite
the progress, it is necessary to point out the growing participation of members
of the middle and wealthy classes in the statistics on violence, not just
as victims, but as perpetrators.
"This is a fact that
needs to be stressed, because, otherwise, we can get the impression, which
is still somewhat biased, that those who are disadvantaged provoke the violence,"
the specialist warns.
Another point underlined
by Grossi is the fact that young people perceived the lack of schooling as
one of the causes of violence. "It is not so much the lack of schooling
as the lack of schools, a gap whose consequences, sooner or later, can lead
to violent behavior," she explains.
The Enem examination is
held every year for the purpose of evaluating the quality of instruction absorbed
by students who are finishing secondary school or who have already graduated
and desire to test their knowledge.
Nasi Brum works for Agência Brasil (AB), the official press agency
of the Brazilian government. Comments are welcome at lia@radiobras.gov.br.
Translated
from the Portuguese by Allen Bennett.
