A liberal democracy can survive for a while on institutional strength and widespread agreement. As long as most people are generally satisfied with how things are going (or have made peace with the status quo), it is easy to imagine that something like a social contract will keep things on track. Hamish MacAuley makes a persuasive case that many Canadians came of age politically between the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the 2008 financial crisis, when consensus was widespread and politics seemed optional, thus many chose to stay out. We abandoned democratic governing habits during prosperous times. Instead, we played politics. In response, McGill's Jacob T. Levy advocates for political action that rejects the status quo while also refusing to burn it all down or take our ball and go home. We should participate in politics, even if it is unsatisfying. When the foundations of our democratic structure or the rights of vulnerable people are jeopardized, it makes sense to delegate aut
Domestic Constraints
Brazil's progress in addressing long-standing issues such as poverty and inequality is clear. Brazil's growing middle class, significant deepwater oil discoveries, and forthcoming major international athletic events all boost expectations and provide new problems. Its principal goals for the next decade are to absorb and build on its achievements while also reducing residual socioeconomic gaps. Brazil's performance on these metrics will have a substantial impact on its economic growth, as well as how it is perceived worldwide.
Brazil's long-term ability to compete on the global stage with countries such as China and India is dependent on improving infrastructure, raising the quality of basic education, increasing the number of skilled laborers who supply burgeoning Brazilian industries, and creating socially and environmentally sustainable conditions in which innovation and small businesses can thrive. If it fails to fulfill these difficulties, it risks slipping behind.
The stakes are high for Brazil, with popular expectations of a progressive and positive trajectory putting significant pressure on the country's democratically elected authorities. Given its history of hyperinflation, inequality, poverty, and social exclusion, backsliding might have serious and negative consequences for the health of its democracy and social contract.
infrastructure.
Brazil requires enormous investment in basic infrastructure to satisfy present needs and maintain its recent fast development rate. Forty-three percent of Brazilian households—about 25 million families—live in substandard housing with no reliable access to potable water, sewage disposal, or garbage collection. Brazil's aging seaports handle 95 percent of the country's exports, but they rank 123rd out of 139 countries in the World Economic Forum's most recent global competitiveness study. Due to the lack of an integrated national rail system, most producers in the interior must send their goods to the port via vehicles, yet just 10% of the nation's roads—approximately 124,000 miles over a country of more than 3 million square miles—are paved.
Full implementation is not guaranteed, however. The initial PAC experienced implementation difficulties, with only 40% of the allocated monies spent by the end of 2009, despite election-year stimulus increasing PAC spending to 74% of the intended amount. Major projects for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, including a high-speed rail route between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, are significantly delayed. Project costs and capacity restrictions, in terms of physical manpower available to complete projects and BNDES's ability to fulfill project funding, are projected to rise as critical deadlines approach.
The politicization of major projects, as well as the lack of suitable financing outside of BNDES (commercial banks are unable to provide funding at the required interest rate, tenor, and volume), limit the number of current initiatives that can be undertaken and slow project development once approved. Indeed, BNDES's own February 2011 evaluation of near-term infrastructure investment revealed only
Between 2011 and 2014, R$380 billion was invested in projects related to electricity generation, communications, sanitation, and transportation.
Conclusions and recommendations.
As the impending host of both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, Brazil has a unique chance to use these events to elevate urban infrastructure to the top of its national agenda in a way that fosters robust economic growth and sustainable development. Rio de Janeiro, in particular, provides an opportunity to anticipate critical long-term urban infrastructure needs in a rapidly developing megacity and use compressed investment timelines to establish a template for future green economies and smart cities, including those in the United States. However, it is critical that these investments are carried out without contributing to overheated pressures.
U.S. and Brazilian industry, in collaboration with federal and local government agencies, would be well positioned to provide innovative solutions to the challenges of city-scale infrastructure investment. The Task Force applauds the development of the U.S.-Brazil Joint Initiative on Urban Sustainability (JIUS), which was envisioned by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and formally launched during Obama's March 2011 trip to Brazil.
The Task Force promotes interagency support and success for JIUS, which identifies and supports sector-specific infrastructure investment opportunities in transportation, air quality, water and wastewater, energy, waste, and land redevelopment projects. JIUS will use scheduled event investments to focus on green growth and sustainability, assuring a green, smart, and energy-efficient build-up of important Brazilian infrastructure ahead of major global events.
Education
Brazil has long struggled to provide primary and secondary students with access to public education. The social welfare program Bolsa Familia has resulted in record elementary and secondary school enrollment. However, by the age of twelve, Brazilian pupils, particularly females, begin to drop out; the rate quickly rises by the age of sixteen, the legal age for official employment. The quality of public education remains poor and varies greatly by state, city, and socioeconomic status. According to
Between 1995 and 2007, there was no substantial improvement in the levels of learning achieved by Brazilian pupils in the grades evaluated.
During the same period, Brazil made significant investments in education: conditional cash transfers were first tied to school attendance in 2001, and education spending climbed by 66% between 2000 and 2007, according to the OECD. Brazil's public education spending as a proportion of GDP (5.2 percent) is comparable to the United States' (5.5 percent) and higher than Russia, India, and China. However, Brazil falls well below these other growing economies in math, science, and reading statistics. Indeed, the World Economic Forum ranked Brazil's primary education system 127th out of 139 countries for competitiveness. Brazil fared similarly poorly in an OECD cross-country examination conducted in December 2010, however there was a small increase in the quality of math and science education.10
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