Brazil’s development

Brazil, with a per capita GDP in purchasing power parity terms of $US10,300 in 2008 compared to $US37,500 for Australia, continues to develop its economic well-being with higher levels of income inequality with its richest 10 per cent having 51 times the income of its poorest 10 per cent compared to 12.5 for Australia and 4.5 for Japan. The World Bank’s Gini index (2007), which rates nations with a value of 0 representing absolute equality and 100 absolute inequality, gave Brazil a score of 57 compared to 35 for Australia, and about 25-26 for Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Japan.

A reason for immense income disparity in Brazil is explained by regional differences. The tropical northeast is the poorest region, the cooler south is the wealthiest in per capita GDP terms where many Europeans settled, while the southeast region has the greatest economic output and is the most densely populated.

Eighty per cent of Brazilians live in urban areas, many living in favelas (shantytowns) with inadequate water, sanitation, health facilities and educational opportunities. Hence, crime in Brazil (particularly in major cities) remains disturbing with the US Department of State noting that a majority of crimes are not solved.

Brazil has one of the 20 worst murder rates in the world (about 23.8 homicides per 100,000 residents with 46,660 deaths in 2006 after a figure of 51,043 in 2003). Brazil also has high rates of muggings, robberies, kidnapping (with many forced to withdraw money at ATMs), gang violence, drug trafficking, money laundering, extortion, murder for hire, fraud, computer hacking and internet fraud. And incidents of piracy occur, with the most dangerous incidents occurring around the Amazon river mouth; along with slavery, with 4,133 freed in 2005 from 183 farms by Brazilian swat-style teams.

Brazil’s high rate of crime is hardly helped by high levels of police brutality and corruption: a 2008 report by Philip Alston (United Nations) estimated that police are responsible for 20 per cent of killings in Brazil.

Brazil is also hindered by inefficient public services, and education and health services which do little to alleviate the immense inequality that exists. For instance, the quality of state education remains a cause for concern with public education teachers still underpaid, often working in poor conditions, and having little access to training. Hence, Brazilian education still produces low levels of efficiency for 15-year-old students (particularly in public schools) with its 2003 Program for International Student Assessment score for reading, mathematics, problem solving and science well behind Australia (380 to 526). Further, illiteracy is still about 27 per cent in the northeast.

Other possible obstacles to social progress in Brazil may include a media dominated by a small number of large private companies (often family-owned). Community radio stations are difficult to establish because of a long and bureaucratic process to secure a licence and because stations get closed down by government agents.

Also there is a culture of violence against women, with one incident estimated to occur every 15 seconds despite low levels of reporting to police.

Two thirds of Brazil’s population population still do not have access to the internet, despite improving telephones and internet use.

Privileged elites, income disparity, and freer trade are also contributing to Brazil’s forestry destruction: a major concern given that Brazil lost about 150,000 square kilometres of forest (an area larger than Greece) between May 2000 and August 2006, and over 600,000 square kilometres of Amazon rainforest since 1970.

With less than 3 per cent of the population controlling two thirds of the land available for production, cattle-ranching remains a leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon.

Forestry affects the poor north region most in an area covering 45 per cent of Brazil and including most of the Amazon rainforest and many indigenous tribes. It is also a major cause of violent conflicts between large landowners, poor colonists, and indigenous groups. The Pastoral Land Commission, a non governmental group, has reported that the number of conflicts over land among peasants, farmers, and land speculators rose to 1,801 in 2004 after being 1,690 in 2003 and 925 in 2002.