Agency Goal: Protecting the Environment

Brazil is considered a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions because of deforestation and burning that take place extensively in the Amazon as well as the savanna (cerrado) zone. By disseminating environmentally sustainable development alternatives throughout the Amazon region and reducing the frequency of burning in the savannas, CO2 emissions are reduced and biodiversity is conserved. In the Atlantic forest region of Brazil and, to a lesser extent, in the Amazon, severe forest fragmentation threatens the viability of tropical forest biodiversity. Through innovative partnerships between U.S. environmental PVOs and Brazilian NGOs, and training of key individuals, the USAID Global Climate Change (GCC) program has made a major difference on the course of development in these areas in the first five years of the program. During 1995 grantees supported under the Program engaged in major outreach efforts in the Brazilian Amazon and Atlantic forest. Geographical data bases established by the local NGOs that document local community experiences in forest management in light of local infrastructure and environmental conditions have been used to guide community forest management plans for a new settlement project, to define an environmental buffer for a major mining project, to orient a strategy for ecotourism development in a forested coastal area, and to design a new World Bank project in forest resource management.

The participatory nature of the USAID environmental program, its relatively low cost, and its focus on flexible NGO mechanisms for implementation has become its prime defining characteristic and a major factor in its success. The USAID partnership approach lends credibility to field-oriented NGOs that are working to find viable solutions to resource use issues in forested regions. U.S. NGOs are important for technical backstopping and guidance for local NGO partners. The local NGOs themselves have grown and are taking even broader leadership roles at the state and federal level. The local head of World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) recently became the Secretary for Integrated Development in the Brazilian Ministry of Environment. The USAID-trained (environmental public policy) head of the Brazilian Socio-Environmental Institute, an NGO concerned with indigenous rights, is now head of the federal Indian Protection Agency. A change in attitude is slowly taking place in the most conservative ranks of the Brazilian government, recognizing the effectiveness of the USAID participative partnership approach to environmental issues. The greatest advance has been getting the World Bank to adopt the USAID approach in design of new projects. The World Bank has turned to USAID for assistance in designing components of a pilot program to conserve the Brazilian Rain Forest. Just those components redefined under the pilot program in 1995 amount to over ten times the dollar value of the first five-year cost of the GCC Program. This leveraging effect and the swift turn around in World Bank practices will have a lasting effect in the Amazon.

Special Objectives

USAID has three areas of interest for which there are special objectives. These are at risk youth, administration of justice, and energy.

At Risk Youth: This program will continue to initiate and implement activities for at-risk youth with Brazilian NGOs in the Northeast, with special emphasis on specific needs of at-risk girls and families. New funds are being requested in 1997 to continue the expansion of this successful program in conjunction with the AIDS prevention program. There is a strong association between youth living in poverty and living on the street. Over 45 million Brazilians live below the poverty line. Of these, 30 million are children under the age of 18. Since October 1994, USAID has been implementing an At-Risk Youth project to support organizations assisting youth in the three largest cities in northeast Brazil: Recife, Salvador and Fortaleza which have a combined population of about 9,000,000. UNICEF estimates that 1,355,000 children are at risk of illiteracy, disease, delinquency, drug abuse, prostitution, and human rights violations in these three Northeastern capitals. The project has the following four components: (1) protection of children's rights and improvement of juvenile justice; (2) preventive youth development projects in low-income urban areas; (3) support for young women at-risk of sexual abuse or exploitation; and (4) support for at-risk families. The project addresses the issues of human rights and justice. Street children, particularly girls, are often victims of violence and abuse perpetrated by other citizens and by police. The project assists organizations to define and publicize children's rights, to offer recourse when those rights are violated, and to address population and health issues. The IDB, UNICEF, the International Labor Organization, and the European Union are among USAID's partners in ongoing projects. In its first 15 months of operation, the project has provided direct and indirect services to over 3,000 children and youth. The number of beneficiaries is expected to reach 10,000 by 1997. Other donor and GOB- funded activities will reach an additional 48,300 youth in the three target areas. This project has assumed increasing political importance in the Brazil scenario, as at-risk youth is increasingly recognized as one of the country's major social problems.

Administration of Justice: USAID will focus on the role of the prosecutor and police in criminal investigations. As a collaborative effort between the Department of Justice and the National Center for State Courts, training will involve criminal investigative techniques and forensics, case management, and the interaction between police, prosecutors, and judges. As the government moves to modernize and open Brazil's economy and political system, one of the most important areas for reform and of U.S. strategic interest is the justice sector. Money laundering, narcotics processing and distribution, precursors, and narcotics-related urban violence are all growing concerns. At the same time, Brazil is a major U.S. trading partner, with approximately $20 billion of bilateral trade in 1995. The legal rules for the private sector are unclear, corruption is a major concern of the government, legal remedies are ineffectual for the average citizen, and human rights violations are a major problem. The government has clearly indicated its commitment to judicial reform and wants the United States as a partner to develop more effective, efficient, and coordinated investigative procedures and to improve coordination between the police, prosecutors, and judges in carrying out investigations. The assessment will focus on issues of organized crime, narcotics, and white-collar crime. Brazil's new constitution established an independent judiciary, and this technical team also will also explore criminal code and criminal procedural code revisions which continue the reform process, modernize judicial administration, improve investigation and prosecution of narcotics-related crimes, provide measures to decongest the courts, and improve investigative systems.

Energy: Activities under this special objective will be concluded in 1997. Efforts will continue to foster and deepen the regulatory reform efforts of the government. Support will be provided to the energy efficiency efforts of the utilities and renewable energy activities in the northeast will be expanded. Major sectors of Brazil's $500 billion economy are soon to be privatized and are of great investment interest to U.S. firms. The energy sector in Brazil is undergoing a dramatic transformation resulting from Brazil's these massive privatization efforts. The estimated energy needs to sustain the impressive economic growth are immense and generation capacity is below requirements, with brown- outs already occurring in major industrial areas of São Paulo. At the same time, public sector investment is not only failing to meet current and projected demand levels, but estimates are that investments on the order of $10 to $15 billion will be required by the year 2000 to meet rising demand. USAID assistance is being provided to influence the system changes to help address these energy needs in a sustainable manner in order to assure that traditional,unsustainable methods, which generate considerable amounts of green house gases are not used. Since August 1995, USAID has been implementing the Brazil Energy Program (BEP) as part of its global climate change portfolio of activities. The BEP focuses on promoting energy efficiency, promoting the use of renewable energy sources (wind, solar, biomass), and influencing the ongoing energy sector reforms that will increase private sector participation and increase effieciency in the electricity sub-sector. All these activities contribute to the mitigation of global climate change by eliminating or reducing green house gas emissions from fossil and other fuels. The BEP is part of the U.S. response to the presidential agreements of the December 1994 Summit of the Americas. Additionally, the BEP helps identify and open business opportunities for the U.S. energy industry in the multi-billion energy market in Brazil.

Mission Director: Edward L. Kadunc

PROGRAM: BRAZIL
TITLE AND NUMBER: Increase access to contraceptive methods and integrated family planning services in order to improve women's reproductive health, 512-SO01
STATUS: Continuing
PROPOSED OBLIGATION AND FUNDING SOURCE: FY 1997: $4,600,000 DA
INITIAL OBLIGATION: FY 1995; ESTIMATED COMPLETION DATE: FY 2000

Purpose: To improve quality of family planning services, increase access to reproductive health, and improve sustainability of family planning delivery systems.

Background: Brazil has a population of 150 million persons, the largest in Latin America. Maternal mortality is excessively high for Latin America, at 200 deaths per 100,000 births. Family planning use, while estimated at over 70% for the country as a whole, shows regional disparities and is heavily concentrated on female sterilization and oral contraceptives. In the Northeast, a heavily populated and extremely poor region of 40 million people, where USAID assistance is targeted, health services for women and children are disorganized, underfunded, and of very poor quality. Health care in Brazil is characterized by a weak service delivery system that neglects preventive care and concentrates resources on expensive curative care for select populations. USAID is assisting the development and implementation of service delivery systems, public and private, for low-income people, that emphasize preventive services, especially in maternal and child health. Improving the provision of family planning services is a priority.

USAID Role and Achievements to Date: USAID assistance is channelled through U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) which work in conjunction with the state health departments in the Northeast states of Ceará and Bahia. With USAID assistance, health care workers have been trained, commodities have been purchased, and quality services provided to improve the reproductive health offered to low-income women. In the three years that USAID has been supporting public sector health care in the Northeast, the contraceptive method mix has become more diversified, including an increase in condom use. A demographic and health survey to be completed in FY 1996, will provide the data to evaluate the impact to date of the USAID Brazil program and other contributing donor agencies such as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA). USAID's assistance, which up to 1992 was channeled primarily through Brazilian NGOs, has helped to generate an increased demand for reproductive health services within the country.

Description: The total amount of funding requested for population and health is planned for population activities. The focus of USAID's family planning assistance is improving the quality of women's reproductive health services, and ensuring that a balanced, high-quality, and sustainable program exists in target areas by the end of this final assistance period, 1993-2000. The USAID strategy, carefully developed with U.S.-based PVOs and local NGOs, concentrates on expanding the limited range of family planning methods, increasing information available in Brazil about reproductive health care, and integrating family planning with viable service delivery systems in the public and private sectors. Family planning assistance has been concentrated increasingly in two target states in Northeast Brazil, Bahia and Ceará, which have a combined population of over 20 million persons. In both states, long-range strategic plans have been developed by the states' health services and detailed implementation plans are produced and updated for each year of operation. A further goal of the program is to develop and institutionalize the program at the state level, and efforts to mobilize high- level political support for family planning and reproductive health are proving successful. In other Northeast states, USAID continued to provide minor support through the Brazilian International Planned Parenthood Federation affiliate (BEMFAM). In these states, BEMFAM focused on improving the quality of family planning services by providing a wider range of method choice. BEMFAM also continued to implement the elements of its sustainability plan, in particular the commercial marketing venture.

Host Country and Other Donors: USAID and UNFPA have collaborated closely on assistance to the state of Ceará. USAID, UNFPA, and UNICEF are funding the demographic and health survey. The Japanese International Cooperation Agency will assist the Health Secretariat in Ceará in the area of maternal and child health. The German government will assist the Health Secretariats in Northeast with infrastructure expansion. Also in the planning stage is a joint project between the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Government of Brazil to develop a 10-year health sector rehabilitation and reform project estimated to cost about $1.2 billion. The CanadianInternational Development Agency anticipates increased resources for public health activities in Brazil.

Beneficiaries: USAID-supported activities are targeted to low-income women in the areas of Bahia and Ceará, which have an estimated population of 20 million persons.

Principal Contractors, Grantees, or Agencies: USAID implements its activities through U.S. private voluntary organizations and U.S. firms which have been awarded contracts and grants from the Global Bureau's Population Office. This includes Pathfinder Fund, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Futures Group, Population Council, Johns Hopkins University, and Georgetown University, among others.

Major Results Indicators:
Baseline Target

Unwanted fertility rate 1992 - 1.6 1997 - 1.0
Contraceptive Prevalence rate 1991 - 37% 1997 - 50%
Access and availability of family planning services 1992 - 20% 1997 - 70%
Couple years of protection provided by the public sector
in Bahia 1993 - 18,188 1997 - 150,000

Purpose: Reduced rates of sexually transmitted human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in target populations in two geographic regions of Brazil.

Background: Brazil ranks second among countries reporting acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) cases (76,396 reported AIDS cases as of November 1995). It is estimated that over 500,000 Brazilians are currently infected with HIV. The majority of new AIDS cases result from heterosexual transmission of HIV. Today the male/female ratio is 4:1; in São Paulo state, AIDS is now reported as the number one cause of death for women between the ages of 20 and 34. USAID-supported projects are being implemented in regions where 69% of the cases nationally occur.

USAID Role and Achievements to Date: The major interventions of USAID's six-year (1992-1997) strategy for AIDS prevention are:

- STD prevention and control, by strengthening local capacity to provide treatment and prevention services. In 1995, over 464 health providers were trained and 34,880 STD patients were assisted by USAID interventions.

- Behavior change communication, including the use of media and the development and distribution of information, education and communication (IEC) materials regarding STDs and HIV/AIDS. The behavior change communication strategy reached 74,873 individuals through a multifaceted and integrated approach. Free condoms (1,533,854) and IEC materials (1,171,533) were distributed.

- Condom distribution, in collaboration with state local governments and through social marketing, to increase the availability and reduce the price of condoms, and to encourage regular and correct condom use. During 1995, a total of 18,195,175 condoms were sold through the social marketing program, representing a 61% increase in sales over 1994.

Overall, the AIDSCAP Brazil office developed 13 subprojects with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and local governments to carry out HIV/AIDS prevention and intervention activities.

Description: The total amount of funding requested for population and health is planned for population activities. USAID's STD/AIDS prevention activities in Brazil focus on groups with high-risk behavior in the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In addition, low-income adolescents are being reached through two intervention projects and women through a small grants component. The program supports the three major program areas of STDs, behavior change communication, and condom distribution among the target populations, as well as supporting interventions such as logistics management to improve condom and STD drug supply, private sector leveraging, and behavioral research grants.

Host Country and Other Donors: The five-year (1994-1998), $250 million, World Bank loan to the Ministry of Health is currently the major national AIDS and STD control project being implemented.

Beneficiaries: STD/AIDS high-risk population including low-income adolescents. Since AIDS control and prevention project implementation began in FY 1994, 114,629 people have been reached by intervention and education activities.

Principal Contractors, Grantees, or Agencies: USAID implements activities through the U.S. private voluntary organization, Family Health International, and local NGOs.

Major Results Indicators:
Baseline (1992-1994) Target (1997)
High-risk Low-risk
Males Females Males Females H.R. L.R.

Condom use 88% 83% 9% 19-35% 100% 80%

Knowledge of two 55-81% 29-79% 33% 33% 100% 80%
methods of prevention

PROGRAM: BRAZIL
TITLE AND NUMBER: Environmentally and socio-economically sustainable alternatives for sound land use adopted beyond target areas, 512-SO03
STATUS: Continuing
PROPOSED OBLIGATION AND FUNDING SOURCE: FY 1997: $5,000,000 DA
INITIAL OBLIGATION: FY 1995; ESTIMATED COMPLETION DATE: FY 1999

Purpose: To reduce deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and the Atlantic forest through environmentally and socio- economically sustainable alternatives for sound land use in these regions.

Background: Brazil is considered a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions because of deforestation and burning that take place extensively in the Amazon as well as the savanna zone. By disseminating sustainable development alternatives throughout the Amazon region and reducing the frequency of burning in the savannas, CO2 emissions are reduced and biodiversity is conserved, while encouraging stable economic growth through a participative, democratic, local-level approach. In the Atlantic Forest region of Brazil and to a lesser extent in the Amazon, severe forest fragmentation threatens the viability of tropical forest biodiversity. USAID has taken the lead in Brazil in attacking these problems through innovative partnerships between U.S. environmental private voluntary organizations (PVOs) and Brazilian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

USAID Role and Achievements to Date: USAID, through support to local NGO efforts and training of key individuals, has made a major difference in the course of development in the Amazon in the first five years of the program. Grantee Woods Hole Research Center and its local NGO affiliate were responsible for the first series of public hearings on a major new mining project in the Amazon and succeeded in having mine installation permits tied to environmental safeguards. The first full demonstration of low-impact timber harvest in the Amazon was sponsored by USAID and has already served as a model for adoption by private timber association members and was key to the design of a new $18.1 million World Bank activity in forest resource management through the Group of Seven pilot program to conserve the Brazilian rain forest. The first and only training to date for staff of state environmental protection agencies in environmental impact assessment was delivered by individuals trained through a USAID initiative. Also, Jaú National Park, the largest in Brazil (the size of the state of Massachusetts), became the first Brazilian Park for which a co-management agreement was accepted between a Brazilian NGO (supported by USAID through World Wildlife Foundation and Brazil's Environmental Resource Institute (IBAMA).

Description: USAID's global climate change program is entering its sixth year with activities continuing to focus on reducing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, although new activities were added this year in biodiversity conservation in the Atlantic Coastal Forest of Southern Bahia. The environmental program is implemented by a number of U.S. agencies and NGOs through agreements with in-country partners. The program focuses on: (1) protected area management in two major national parks, two extractive reserves, one national forest, and the buffer zone surrounding one biological reserve, (2) forest management alternatives for low-impact harvest of upland timber in the largest timber harvesting region in the Eastern Amazon, (3) agroforestry alternatives for restoring productivity to degraded cleared areas, developed in a participatory approach with small holders, and (4) natural resource policy and environmental education, with federal, state, and local officials and land managers.

Host Country and Other Donors: USAID has actively participated in the G-7 pilot program to conserve the Brazilian rain forest, managed by the World Bank. All of the pilot program components designed in the past year have had critical input from global climate change program participants, and one of these, the Forest Resource Management project, was completely redesigned around the participatory approach recommended by USAID.

Beneficiaries: Rural communities and especially small holders who frequently have only traditional rights to their land are the focus of USAID activities. USAID-supported actions benefit Brazilian society at large by assuring that the resource base is maintained for future generations.

Principal Contractors, Grantees, or Agencies: USAID implements activities through U.S. PVOs (World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, and the Woods Hole Research Center), U.S. governmentagencies (the Forest Service and the Smithsonian Institution), and several U.S. academic institutions (University of Florida, and State University of New York).

Major Results Indicators:
Baseline Target
Families adopting agroforestry systems 0 (1991) 134 (1996)
Hectares in improved management systems 0 (1991) 3,722,000 (1996)
Logging companies adopting sustainable logging plan 0 (1991) 1 (1996)
Trained environmental professionals 0 (1991) 963 (1966)