The Sum of Our Days

Mandela said “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Everything I pass a bus stop in Brazil I’m reminded of his words. The Brazilian government made a very smart decision to improve city landscapes by incorporating a “take a book-leave a book” library at each stop.

Tip of the hat to you Brazil.

Brazil As An Emerging Donor: Overview

The majority of my blogging about Brazil has focused on reforms in the education system. This change is of course indicative of greater strides the country has been making in repositioning itself as an emerging global leader.

I have a particular interest in sustainable development so I thought I would take a step back from education in order to examine Brazil´s new position as donor rather then recipient.

There has been a recent shift in Brazilian thinking from viewing itself as a recipient of expertise and aid to one of offering support to other national efforts. Brazil has a broad history of creative problem solving in difficult situations which makes it well positioned to understand development work. Social inclusion with a focus on the environment seem to be the underlining themes of Brazil´s approach to development work.

To get a good sense of Brazil´s recent growth let´s take a look at Brazil´s contributions to international and regional development.

International Relations ( South-South relations)
2005 Brazil contributed US $ 158 million
2009 Brazil contributed US $362 million

The growth seen from 2005 to 2009 is largely an influence of Lula´s administration and his focus on improving South-South relations. Brazil seems to see itself more as a partnership builder rather then a donor. Brazilian aid in the early 2000´s was southern oriented and based on demand. Another distinguishing feature of Brazil´s emerging donor status is its approach to development;it has preferred to disseminate knowledge and training in order to build human resources in recipient countries rather then give cash.

In 2009 Brazil was ahead of China, Russia and Mexico in it´s contributions to international organizations, regional banks, peacekeepers ( Haiti), funds to the World Bank, International Development of America Bank and African Development Bank.

Brazil has had rapid growth in bilateral humanitarian aid for emergency assistance, especially food and medicine.

• 2005: US $ 750,000

• 2009: US $ 43.5 million

The majority of this aid went to Cuba, Haiti and Honduras.

The Brazilian National Development Bank offers financing to governments who contract Brazilian companies for large scale infrastructure programs.

• 2008: US $204 million

• 2009: US $ 860 million

Interestingly enough aside from multilateral contributions, humanitarian aid, and some foreign student assistance, only 5.5 %-13.5% of the annual Brazilian development assistance actually represents technical cooperation projects. These projects best highlight Brazil’s unique `solidarity diplomacy`.

More then 100 federal organizations have been involved in lending expertise for technical cooperation projects with most of the costs being absorbed by the agencies.

Brazil is focused on passing on its innovation and expertise to other countries as seen by the 300 + on-going or recently finished projects, examples include replications of Brazil´s AIDS programs and agricultural knowledge dissemination.

Overall Brazil has had two main phases to it´s technical cooperation projects with the first set focusing on Africa. Guinea, Mozambique, Zambia and 8 West African countries of The Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS). Most of Brazil´s support has focused on supporting national efforts for the introduction of biofuels.

The second cluster of projects are with the Americas and focus on the exchange of research and information for environmental protection and biofuels.

In the last 10 years Brazil has greatly expanded its development assistance for other countries. Technical cooperation projects use to form the bulk of Brazil´s assistance projects and served to introduce Brazil´s solidarity diplomacy to the world. More and more we will see the importance of Brazil as a contributor to the global common good, such a achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Brazil Approves Racial Quotas for Higher Education

As you may have gathered from past posts I have thus far spent the majority of the few months before arriving to Brazil and now in Brazil working on social development through education. The `college`system is still fairly new to Brazil and has had and continues to have impressive growth.

I recently read about a Supreme Court of Brazil plenary session where a decision was made for the adoption of racial quota policies in higher education institutions across the country. It will not be mandatory, instead it will allow educational institutions the legal right to devote a specific percentage of places for students of African and/or Indigenous origin.

The measure is a reflection of affirmative action policies being constitutional in the country since democratization in 1988. These policies basically state that Brazil acknowledges that people are not treated equally and as a result do not have the same opportunities which prevents them from producing knowledge and engaging in the power of negotiation.

The University of Brasilia (UNB) was the first educational institution to adopt the measure when, in 2004, it started reserving 20% of its university places exclusively for students of African decent, and a smaller percentage for those of Indigenous background, without the entry requirement of taking the regular university exam. 

According to Minister Joaquim Barbosa, “these measures are intended not only to combat manifestations of blatant discrimination, but discrimination in fact, that is absolutely rooted in society, and so ingrained, people do not perceive it”,

However, not everyone agrees with the decision of the Supreme Court. Videoblogger Daniel Fraga argues that in a country such as Brazil, where racial mixing is very high, it would be difficult to correctly define who really is black or white. This decision would be made based on a “visual criteria,” and mentions UNB’s case of two twin brothers, one considered white and the other black, the latter gaining a quota place at the university.

The discussion will continue in the coming weeks since, besides this action, the Supreme Court is yet to decide the constitutionality of racial quotas when applied to a student who attended public school.