PCD Challenges at National level: the Brazilian experience

Romulo Paes de Sousa, Director of the RIO+ Centre

Brazilian policy implementation context

• Large country with major sub-national differences, making it necessary to adapt policy implementation to local realities.

• Highly decentralized government system in which local governments, particularly in poor localities, face challenges in terms of management capacity and governance.

• High popular expectations and substantial political pressure on government to meet these expectations within short time frames.

Bloom, Paes-Sousa and cols (2014)

https://www.ids.ac.uk

Brazilian policy implementation context

• Rapid implementation of policy reforms and wide variation in the quality of services provided.

• Rising levels of government expenditure on social policies and pressure for further increases.

• Policies, and their implementation, need to adapt constantly to rapid and interconnected changes.

• Heavy reliance on testing new approaches locally and diffusing lessons from successful experiments to other contexts as a way to scale up local programmes to the national scale.

Bloom, Paes-Sousa and cols (2014)

https://www.ids.ac.uk

Building public policy cohesion in Brazil

Assets

• Inclusive economic model. More than 32 millions have recently ascended to upper social strata

• Advances on social protection and environmental policies, such as Bolsa Familia Program, controlling deforestation, and using clean energy sources

• Sharing responsibilities on policy implementation among federal, provincial and municipal governments

• Strong tradition on social participation.

• Robust administrative structures across the three governmental levels.

Building public policy cohesion in Brazil

Obstacles

• Federative model. The municipalities are in the same level as the provincial governments, producing tensions among the three levels

• Complex political coalition. 26 parties have representation in the congress. 10 parties have representatives in the ministerial level. The political spectrum varies from the right wing parties to the PC

• Fragmented federal structures: 24 ministries plus 15 organizations with ministerial status, producing juxtaposing competencies and competition

How to move and to speed the engine: the example of the Eradication of the Extreme

Poverty Plan Objectives

- to raise the per capita household income of the target population;

- to expand access to public goods and services; and

- to provide access to job and income opportunities through productive inclusion initiatives.

Paes-Sousa (2014)http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/

IPCOnePager214.pdf

How to move and to speed the engine: the example of the Eradication of the Extreme

Poverty Plan • Clear definition of agenda, targets and indicators.

Periodical review of targets and indicators by the president and ministers

• Having a political and technical forums for identifying problems and solving conflicts. Structured in three levels: political (ministers), executive (deputy ministers), and technical (representative of the ministries)

• Periodical review of the mandate of the chairperson of the inter-ministerial group (by the President)

• Sharing the potential political gains among all political actors, i.e., giving visibility to the contribution of the federal, provincial and municipal levels.

• Transparency. Making all monitoring indicators and data available.

How all these feed into the SD debate

• Agenda. The Brazilian assertive participation on social and environmental issues rely on its own public policy experience.

• Method. The debate about Sustainable Development Goals converge to the Inter-Ministerial Working Group (encompassed by 25 ministries). It is coordinated by 4 ministries (International Affairs, Social Development, Environment and Finance). The Rio+ Centre supports officially the Group on its dialogue with the civil society.

• South-South dialogue. Brazil has been active on articulations with other emerging countries in order to obtain pragmatist deals

RIO+ research on Brazilian discourses on the post-2015 agenda at the UN fora. The100 most frequently used keywords

1rst technical meeting of the Working Inter-Ministerial Group

Amb. Marcondes (technical coordinator), DM Santana (Presidential Cabinet), DM dos Santos (Foreign Affairs), Romulo Paes (Rio+) and Diana Alarcon (Keynote speaker)

Lessons from the Brazilian case

• Leadership is essential

• The political economy of implementing comprehensive policies, having a consistent political offer

• The role of the techno-political forums : identification of problems, producing solutions (legal, administrative, funding, technical support, etc.), solving conflicts, addressing to the political level

• Evidence necessary for policy & political survival

• A communication strategy for: beneficiaries, administrative partners, political actors and tax payers

• International alliances are getting more effective in the South

Thank you!

www.riopluscentre.org