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Canada’s Commitment
Looking Ahead
The fifth-largest country in the world with the fifth-largest population, Brazil is the leading economic and political power in South America. The Government of Canada, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), aims to contribute to the achievement of greater equity in Brazil by supporting positive Brazilian efforts to reform the social and public sectors. 
Santo André, part of Metropolitan São Paulo,
is looking to CIDA-funded watershed management
projects to reduce pollution in the river systems
and manage sludge residues from waste
treatment plants. |
Experience has shown that Brazilians are interested in understanding how Canada has operationalized the principles that provide a basis for an equitable society. These "equity principles" include power sharing and participation, fairness and justice, transparency and accountability, equitable distribution of resources, equal access, ownership rights, and gender equality.
The Brazilian government is determined to reduce the gaps in income and in standards of living affecting its population. An economic, social, and public sector reform program now in progress aims at increasing the participation of poor and marginalized groups in public decision-making. The program also focuses on environmentally sustainable economic growth that emphasizes employment and income generation while reducing inequalities between regions, strengthening democracy, renewing public administration, and reducing corruption.
 Canada’s Commitment
Through CIDA, Canada has provided $170 million in development assistance to Brazil since the cooperation program began in 1968. 
The Projeto Axé bus, purchased with the help
of the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives,
is used as a mobile clinic to teach
street children in Salvador about sexually
transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. |
The assistance program comprises bilateral assistance and support to the work of CIDA’s partners, including international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme and Canada’s many non-governmental organizations. Total Canadian official development assistance to Brazil through bilateral arrangements and CIDA’s Canadian Partnership Branch programs averages about $11 million a year.
Looking Ahead
A new bilateral Brazil-Canada program is now under consideration. If accepted, this new program would put more emphasis on reducing the wide gaps in income and in standards of living. The primary sector for programming would be governance, which is in line with CIDA’s approach in Latin America and with the Government of Brazil’s plans for 2004–2007. Efforts would concentrate on northeastern Brazil, the most disadvantaged region of the country. As a concrete step in this direction, the program is relocating its officer in the São Paulo office to this region.
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