Economy , president of Central Bank since the start of Lula's presidency Lula was elected in a difficult economic context, and his administration began by following the economic policy of the previous government,
FHC. To this end, he nominated
Henrique Meirelles, a federal deputy elected by the
PSDB of
Goiás in 2002, to head the
Brazilian Central Bank, sending a strong signal to the market – especially the international market, where Meirelles is well known for having been the president of
Bank Boston – that there would be no abrupt changes in the conduct of economic policy in his government. He appointed
Antônio Palocci, a sanitarian physician and former mayor of
Ribeirão Preto, a member of the Workers' Party, as Minister of Finance. After repeated accusations against Palocci by the media, in the case known as , Palocci resigned (on 27 August 2009, the STF dismissed the accusation against Palocci). His replacement was the economist and university professor
Guido Mantega, who took over the ministry on 27 March 2006. The Lula administration was characterized by low inflation, which was under control, reduction in unemployment and constant records in the balance of trade. During President Lula's administration there was a record production in the automobile industry in 2005, the largest real growth in the
minimum wage and reduction of the
Gini coefficient. In 2010,
Alan Mulally,
Ford's global president, stated that thanks to the incentive programmes of Lula's government, it was possible for the country to effectively come out of the world crisis. During the crisis the GDP retraction was only 0.2%, showing a better result than the major economies of the world. Inequality between the richest and the poorest is said to have increased between 2001 and 2003, according to a publication by
O Globo in February 2005. After Lula took office, however, a report by the
IBGE at the end of November 2007 stated that President Lula's government was making Brazil a less unequal country. Based on the PNAD (National Household Sample Survey), the
FGV published a study showing percentages comparing the period since the year Lula took office. Between 2002 and 2007, Brazil, although it improved its
HDI (Human Development Index) from 0.790 to 0.813, fell from 63rd place to 75th place in the world ranking of countries. Countries considered to have "High Human Development" are those with an HDI above 0.800. In the 2010 survey, the final year of the Lula administration, Brazil still stood in a distant 73rd position among 169 countries. With regard to infant mortality, the Lula administration followed the downward trend that has been observed in Brazil since 1930. Between 1996 and 2000 the reduction was 20.5%, and between 2000 and 2004 the reduction was 15.9%. The‘Light for All’ program was introduced to increase access to electricity and a Unified Social Assistance system was set up, in which the state (as noted by one study) “effectively takes responsibility for the protection of the poorest.” In addition, the percentage of Brazilians covered by social security rose; from 45% to 51% during the course of Lula's first presidency.
Bolsa Família . A well-known social program of the Lula administration is
Bolsa Família, created by Law No. 10,836 of 9 January 2004, and regulated by Decree No. 5,209 of 17 September 2004. The purpose of the program, which serves about 12.4 million inhabitants, is the direct transfer of income from the government to poor families (monthly income per person between R$ 69.01 and R$ 137.00) and those in extreme poverty (monthly income per person up to R$ 69.00). The program was a reformulation and expansion of the
Bolsa Escola program of the
Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration, which covered 5.1 million families. There are concerns that the program is a way of buying votes, that there is no strict control against fraud, and that there is a risk of it becoming a permanent source of income for beneficiaries. which benefits the country's economy. The French newspaper
Le Monde reported: "The Bolsa Família program above all expands access to education, which represents the best weapon, in Brazil or anywhere on the planet, against poverty."
Fome Zero program. The Fome Zero program began as an attempt by the President of the Republic to
mobilize the masses in favor of the neediest people in Brazil. The program caused the attention of international governments to turn to Brazil, and Luiz Inácio was highly praised by international organizations. The goal was the bold task of eradicating hunger in four years and reducing undernourishment by 2015. It was, however, praised by the Secretary-General of the
UN,
Ban Ki-moon, who, in 2010, during participation in the III Forum of the Alliance of Civilizations, said that the program, together with Bolsa Família, made "a great difference" for Brazil.
Primeiro Emprego The Lula administration launched the Primeiro Emprego program in 2003, a campaign banner of Lula's 2002 election. In 2009, the government considered reviving the program, but there was no consensus on the matter.
Fight against slavery The fight against slavery and degrading labor conditions was strengthened under President Lula's administration. The result was that, between 1995 and 2002, 5,893 people were rescued from slave labor, and between 2003 and 2009 Brazil rescued 32,986 people from conditions of slave labor, most of them during the Lula administration. However, punishments for slave labor in Brazil are sometimes limited to labor compensation, such as those undertaken by the Votorantim Group, but there has already been progress and convictions for such crime. According to the
ILO (International Labour Organization), to this day there has been only one conviction in the country with effective prison time served, with the usual sanctions being only fines, compensation to victims, and blocking company records from receiving financing.
Health The Ministry of Health launched the
Brasil Sorridente program on 17 March 2004, with the objective of expanding access to dental treatment in the country, and it was the first national policy specifically directed at oral health in Brazil. The program proposed the expansion and qualification of primary care by incorporating Oral Health Teams into Primary Care through the Family Health Strategy, as well as offering more services through the creation of Dental Specialty Centers for medium- and high-complexity care. The
Farmácia Popular (PFPB) is a program of the National Pharmaceutical Assistance Policy of the
Federal government of Brazil, created on 13 April 2004 by Law No. 10,858. It is developed in partnership with municipal governments throughout the country, with the purpose of offering commonly used medicines at reduced prices through its own establishments or accredited private pharmacies. They are characterized by providing assistance to people in urgent situations at the scenes where these occur, ensuring early care appropriate to the pre-hospital environment and access to the
Health System. In December 2004, President Lula authorized the creation of
Hemobrás (Brazilian Company of Hemoderivatives and Biotechnology), a
state-owned enterprise aimed at researching, developing and producing
medicines blood-derived and
biotechnological products primarily to serve patients of the
Unified Health System (SUS).
Basic Health Units (UBS) became the designation adopted in Brazil from 2007 onward through the
Growth Acceleration Program (PAC). These units perform the same functions as the former
Health Posts, with that designation being gradually replaced by Basic Health Unit. Within the organization of a national urgent-care policy, in addition to mobile emergency care services (SAMU), the
Emergency Care Units (UPA) were implemented, intermediate units between primary care and hospital emergencies. The first Emergency Care Units were implemented by the
State Department of Health of the state of
Rio de Janeiro in 2007 before federal regulation, through Ordinance No. 1020 of 13 May 2009, which adopted the nomenclature. The PAC was an important source of funding for the UPAs, and the government announced that it would build 500 by the end of the administration. In health, the Lula administration was also acting with investments considered insufficient for the country's needs. Representatives of the
Ministry of Health said at the end of 2009 that the country was below the minimum necessary for universal health standards. According to the Ministry of Health's Economics Department, the percentage of expenditure allocated to Health in relation to GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in Brazil was far below that of other countries. The average in universal systems, according to the
WHO (World Health Organization), was 6.5% of GDP. In Brazil, in 2007, public spending on Health was around 3.5% of GDP. In that year, spending on health goods and services in Brazil was R$ 224.5 billion, or 8.4% of GDP, with 4.8% being household spending and 3.5% government spending. According to the Ministry of Health, the country's public spending in the sector (41.6%) was below the average of the
OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), which was 72%. According to data released by the
IBGE at the end of 2009, Brazilian families spent ten times more on medicines than the country's government. The Ministry of Health stated, however, that there was excessive household spending on medicines due to consumption without medical prescription. According to IBGE researchers, even though the government had increased spending on the sector, the public share was still small compared, for example, to Mexico and other countries with the same type of profile, whose public spending on Health averaged 70%, with 30% borne by families. In 2009 the country invested 7.5% of GDP in Health, while other countries, such as the United States, invested twice as much (15.3%). The then Minister of Health,
José Gomes Temporão, criticized the resources allocated to his ministry. According to the minister, the R$ 66.9 billion provided for 2010 in the Union Budget did not meet the demands of his department.
Labor policy Various reforms affecting working conditions were carried out during Lula’s first presidency. Law 10.666 of 2003 provided for special retirement benefits to be granted to members of production or work cooperatives while Law 11.648/2008 provided legal recognition to trade union federations as entities that represent workers. Law 11.770 of 2008 allowed for extended paternity and maternity leave in some companies, and Law No. 12,353/10 provided for employee participation on the boards of directors of various companies.
Educational policy In the area of higher education, the
ProUni (University for All Program) was, according to statements by the Ministry of Education,
the largest scholarship program in the history of Brazilian education. From 2005 to 2009, ProUni offered almost 600,000 scholarships at approximately 1,500 educational institutions throughout the country, which in return received the benefit of tax exemption. Among the scholarship recipients, 46% were
self-identified Afro-descendants. In 2008, a minimum wage for teachers was established. The government also created eleven federal public universities by September 2009, surpassing the mark of President Juscelino Kubitschek, and in January 2010
UNILA (Federal University of Latin-American Integration) was the thirteenth university created, with classes expected to begin in August 2010, with its first class of 200 students among Brazilians, Paraguayans, Uruguayans and Argentines. By August 2010, federal universities offered 113,000 free places and stated that investments had gone from 20 billion to 60 billion during the Lula administration, promising an increase in places to 250,000 by 2014. However, the program is criticized by professors and scholars at federal educational institutions. Some universities are said to be in a process of deterioration because of lack of federal funding transfers and the lack of university autonomy, an aspiration that was partially addressed in June 2010, near the end of the Lula administration, with the signing of Decree 7.233, which was expected to improve autonomy and resource management from 2011 onward, under the Dilma administration. Investment in education during the Lula administration has been considered insufficient by specialists and sector organizations. In 2005, the percentage of spending on federal higher education in 2005 stagnated at 0.6% of GDP. However, the ideal is considered to be an investment between 8% and 12% of GDP, given Brazil's current educational deficit, something rarely seen in Brazilian history. According to Roberto Leher, professor at the UFRJ Faculty of Education and coordinator of CLACSO's University and Society working group, in an article published in 2005 by Revista Adusp, the university under the Lula administration was a continuation of the agendas of the World Bank, the IDB and ECLAC,
in such a way as to shape the public university into a market sector guided by neoliberal values, which
would hardly deserve the concept of public. Despite the reforms made in 2009 to the
National High School Exam, already in that year the government showed weaknesses in the security of the tests that would largely replace university entrance exams in various universities, with the
occurrence of fraud that caused the postponement of the exams; in November 2010 new
failures followed, causing the
Federal Justice to suspend the exam; in both cases Enem became the subject of investigations by the
Federal Police, and in 2010 the
Ministry of Education even threatened to sue students who exposed the system's failures.
Environmental policy Marina Silva (PT-AC) remained in office until 2008 and left the Ministry of the Environment after facing opposition to her agenda within the government, resigning. However, government actions such as monitoring deforested areas, rationalization of land use, creation of forest reserves and credit control for irregular producers caused the deforested area of the
Amazon to be reduced in 2005, 2006 and 2007 to 11,633 square kilometers, the lowest deforestation since 1991. However, between August 2007 and July 2008, the deforested area increased again, reaching 12,911 square kilometers. Between 2009 and 2010, the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (Imazon) reported 6,451 km² deforested, with a forecast by the
pattern of consolidated deforestation of 7,134 km² in the first year of Dilma's administration. Deforestation of the Atlantic Forest between 2002 and 2008 was 2.7 thousand km². In 1991, 11.1 thousand km² had been deforested, which had itself already been a victory for that government, which had reduced the average between 1978 and 1988 of 20.3 thousand km². The Lula administration also approved the National Climate Change Policy with targets to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions.
Culture The creation of the
EBC was authorized by
Provisional Measure No. 398, of 10 October 2007, and the company was effectively created by
Decree No. 6.246, of 24 October 2007. The Provisional Measure was later converted into
Law No. 11.652, of 7 April 2008. The state-owned company was created from the incorporation of the assets, personnel and broadcasting concessions of the
Empresa Brasileira de Comunicação (Radiobrás) and the
public assets of the Union that were under the custody of the
Associação de Comunicação Educativa Roquette Pinto (Acerp). With the creation of EBC, a new management contract was made between the federal government, through EBC, and Acerp, and the latter became a service provider to EBC, which inherited Radiobrás's channel concessions.
Cultura Viva is a program of the Brazilian
federal government, created in
2004 through an ordinance of the
Ministry of Culture. Its flagship was the creation of the
Pontos de Cultura, the program of the principal cultural policies of the
Lula administration, and it is estimated to have reached 8 million Brazilians between 2004 and 2010.
Infrastructure In January 2007, the
PAC (Growth Acceleration Program) was launched, a set of measures aimed at accelerating the pace of growth of the Brazilian economy, with projected investments of more than 500 billion reais for the four years of the president's second term, in addition to a series of administrative and legislative changes. works in
Cabrobó,
Pernambuco, in 2009. Even with the PAC, infrastructure investments were considered insufficient for Brazil's growth needs, according to analyses and calculations. According to data from economist Raul Velloso, calculated on the basis of the
IBGE, the Union's direct investment rates were far from those recorded in the 1970s. According to Velloso, the Union's investment rate in 2009 reached 0.6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), not including state-owned enterprises, while in 1976, under the Geisel administration, Union investments were 1.9% of GDP, also excluding state-owned enterprises. Between 2003 and 2009, the Union's investment rate fluctuated between 0.2% – one of the lowest since 1970 – and 0.6%, the estimate for 2009. Economist José Roberto Afonso states that public investment increased in the final years of the Lula administration, especially in 2009, with greater execution of Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) works. He says, however, that the increase was insufficient to compensate for the loss in the private sector and also in relation to previous decades. The PAC, however, had problems of execution (delays). President Lula himself cited the delay in the
Transnordestina Railway. Although PAC balances projected, for example, road investments of R$ 45.5 billion over four years, in the last three the Annual Budget Laws (LOAs) had authorized only R$ 21.6 billion for the National Department of Transport Infrastructure (
DNIT), which is equivalent to 47.6% of what had been projected. Only R$ 7.4 billion were actually paid. This amount represented 16.41% of the resources announced by the Union for construction, adaptation, duplication and recovery of road stretches throughout the country, and 34.58% of the resources authorized in the budget for the projects. According to data based on the website
Contas Abertas, of the PAC works throughout the country, just over had been completed, or 9.8% of the total. At the end of Lula's second term, one of the sectors that caused the most concern was civil aviation, mainly because of preparations for the
2014 World Cup. The sector's regulatory agency (
ANAC) at that time had strategic positions vacant, which made it difficult to make important decisions. This deficiency in ANAC's management had existed since the crisis in the Brazilian aviation sector at the end of 2006, which became known as the
"air blackout". The Lula administration was responsible for the concession of about 2,600 kilometers of federal highways, which were auctioned on 9 October 2007.
Security Another serious situation was that of the Brazilian prison system. During the years 2002-2006, the prison population increased by about 67%. The situation reached the point that a
CPI was established. In 2008, investigations showed prison overcrowding, lack of access of prisoners to education and work, and inhumane conditions in prisons. Over eight months, the CPI visited 60 facilities in 17 states and the Federal District. Deputy
Domingos Dutra (PT-MA), rapporteur of the CPI, requested the indictment of about 40 authorities across the country and the holding accountable, in some way, of those responsible for the chaos in the prison system. According to the rapporteur, the estimated average cost of a prisoner in Brazil today is R$ 1,300 to R$ 1,600 per month. The creation of one place in the prison system costs R$ 22,000. "We are paying an absurd amount and the fault is neither of the prisoner, nor of the jailer, nor of Jesus Christ. The fault lies with the Brazilian authorities who have always treated prisoners with disregard, like human trash," said the rapporteur. In 2007, the Lula administration, trying to bring improvements to the area, launched Pronasci (National Program of Public Security with Citizenship), whose goal is to help the states in the qualification and training of police forces. Only at the end of the eight years of the Lula administration did the National Council of Justice (CNJ) begin to analyze changes in the prison system and the Senate's Constitution and Justice Commission (CCJ) changes to the Code of Criminal Procedure, which, however, were criticized for the possibility of making the judiciary even slower than it already is.
Housing ,
São Paulo, in 2005, during the delivery of a housing complex. Brazil's housing deficit today reaches 7.2 million dwellings. Brazil's housing deficit is a serious current problem, of governmental responsibility, which has been leading to the growth of slums in Brazilian cities, especially in large metropolises, causing disruption and difficulties in varied areas such as security, health, urban organization and other aspects. The lack of cheap popular housing is one of the main reasons that lead the population to build slums in various areas. In 2009, it was estimated that São Paulo, the largest Brazilian city, alone had 1.3 million slum dwellers living in about 1,600 slums. To try to alleviate the problem, the Lula administration launched, in April 2009, already near the end of the eight-year term, the "
Minha Casa, Minha Vida" plan. The program aims to build 1 million houses, reducing the country's housing deficit at the time by 14%.
Telecommunications Started in 2003, the Computador para Todos Program had, in 2008, eighteen registered manufacturers to produce low-cost computers under an established law. This was one of the factors that helped some companies increase their production, from 250,000 units sold in 2005 to 2.8 million in 2009. Another factor to be considered in this growth was the greater ease of financing offered by retailers. This program is one of the facilitators of digital inclusion in the country. However, the country still has 104.7 million people without internet access, according to a 2009 IBGE survey. While in Brazil the percentage of people (10 years of age or older) with access to the network is 34.8%, in North America it reaches 74% and, in Europe, 52%. The number of people with computers in their homes has been growing and in 2009 reached 36%. On 25 November 2009,
Anatel announced the creation of a technical commission to study the possibilities of a
caladão occurring, motivated by warnings made by the media that demand would become greater than supply. On the same day,
Abrafix denied the possibility of this occurring. A meeting with technicians from mobile phone companies was scheduled for December, despite the control already exercised by the agency, which released the sale of new plans only after companies proved that there was sufficient network capacity for this. Another problem in the sector is Anatel's own performance, which has been criticized. Many consumers only obtain solutions to their problems by appealing to Brasília, due to the omission of the agency, which is considered non-transparent and inefficient. According to the agency's ombudsman, Aristóteles dos Santos, "after ten years of existence, Anatel, by not fully fulfilling or enforcing the purposes that justified its creation, is, in our view, experiencing a relevant existential crisis". The ombudsman also accuses Anatel of omitting itself in problems of lack of competitiveness and lack of action to lower broadband internet prices. He says that "with low investments, the concessionaires dominate this other regional market practically without competition. They charge users high prices and elevated tariffs for accesses operated at limited speeds". Aristóteles also points out in his report the lack of a plan for rural telephony, saying that Anatel cannot avoid this discussion.
Telebras was officially reactivated to manage the
National Broadband Plan in
2010 during the
administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. ==Foreign affairs==