Global Policy Forum

By Mario Osava

Brazil's new President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched his Zero Hunger programme in Brasilia Thursday, promising to combat the causes, and not just the effects, of the problem.

Brazil's ''war'' (on hunger) is not aimed at ''killing anyone but at simply saving lives,'' said the president, better known as Lula, in reference to the U.S. and British preparations for a war against Iraq.

He was speaking at the ceremony for the installation of the National Food Security Council (CONSEA), in the presence of 500 government officials, politicians and social leaders.

Malnutrition, however, is not limited to Brazil, but affects millions across the planet, which means ''the richest nations have to do their part,'' he added, explaining that he attended the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort town of Davos, Switzerland last weekend ''to put hunger on the global agenda.''

Lula said his Zero Hunger plan is comprised of ''structural, permanent measures that will provide a definitive solution to the problem,'' combined with emergency actions to assist sectors of the population that are suffering the worst poverty.

Among the structural actions designed to free millions of Brazilians from the ''humiliation'' of surviving on donations of basic food supplies are the generation of jobs, efforts to ensure quality education, expanded land reform, measures to foment the creation of cooperatives and access to micro-credit, and skills training initiatives.

The plan will not be a ''temporary programme,'' nor one that is limited to just a few pockets of poverty in the country, said Lula.

In addition, he recognised that hunger is a complex problem, and said previous governments failed in their attempts to eradicate it, because ''they did not put the necessary priority on it, nor did they ensure the indispensable mobilisation of society.''

Lula urged all Brazilians to participate in the effort to eliminate hunger, and called for the creation of municipal councils made up of government officials and ordinary members of society to take part in the ''decisive mission'' of identifying families in need of food aid, setting up donation and distribution centres, educating the population about eligibility requirements, and avoiding ''deviations and waste.''

The Zero Hunger programme will begin to be implemented in two municipalities of Piauí­, one of the poorest states in Brazil's poverty-stricken northeast.

Some 1,000 families in Acauán and Guaribas will be given a kind of debit card with which they will be able to draw 50 reais (14 dollars at the current exchange rate) a month from a state-owned bank to cover their food needs. The next step will be to extend the programme to other parts of Piauí­. Coupons will be used in remote regions where there are no banks.

By the end of the year, the programme will be nationwide.

The final version of the plan, which is still being designed, will be ready by late August, according to the Extraordinary Ministry of Food Security and the Fight Against Hunger, headed by the creator of the Zero Hunger programme, José Graziano.

CONSEA, which will chart the general direction to be taken by the programme, is made up of 72 members, including 13 cabinet ministers, representatives of non-governmental organisations and church groups, business leaders, trade unionists and personalities from the worlds of sports and culture who are well-known for their involvement in social issues.

But the debate between the government and its advisers will be a heated one, as indicated by controversies that have already erupted. For example, some members of CONSEA have criticised Graziano's plan to require that beneficiaries prove that they used the money to buy food.

That requirement is aimed at ensuring that the funds go towards purchases of food, because one of the programme's objectives is to bolster family farms by increasing demand for their products, said Graziano.

That in turn would generate more jobs, leading to an expansion of the economy and of the incomes of local populations, he explained.

The government has already made its requirements for beneficiaries more flexible in response to criticism by experts and members of CONSEA, like Catholic Bishop Mauro Morelli and the coordinator of the Catholic Church-affiliated Pastoral da Crianca, Zilda Arns.

For example, recipients will not be required to show formal invoices, which are nonexistent in informal food stands and shops in northeastern Brazil, but will be able to hand in any sort of receipt they are given by local merchants.

But Arns remains opposed to that requirement. She and other critics argue that the beneficiaries should be free to decide how they will use the funds, because sometimes people have a more pressing need to buy clothing, books or goods to boost quality of life or improve their chance of finding a job.

The expense that goes to monitoring whether or not the money actually went towards buying food would be better applied in educating people about adequate nutrition, said Arns.

The Pastoral da Crianca presently assists more than 1.5 million families in extremely poor communities, where its humanitarian and health efforts have contributed to cutting infant mortality rates to half of the national average, which stands at 29.6 per 1,000 live births.

There are also discrepancies on the number of hungry people in this country of 171 million. The Lula administration's estimate is 46 million, but according to the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA), a government body linked to the Planning Ministry, the number of hungry people in Brazil is half that.

Meanwhile, economist Sonia Marí­a Rocha, an expert on hunger statistics and a World Bank consultant, puts the number at just 16 million.

Some of the estimates are based on income level, while others factor in additional components.

IPEA, for example, counts all Brazilians who earn less than 100 reais (28 dollars) a month as indigent, and therefore ''hungry'' by definition. But that amount buys less food in Sao Paulo, where living is more expensive, than in the impoverished northeast, Rocha points out.

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