Bolsa Familia in Brazil aims to alleviate poverty through cash transfers and break the intergenerational cycle of poverty through human development. It differs from other conditional cash transfer programs in focusing on rapid scaling up through a single registry and mean testing rather than pilots. Complementary programs under Brazil's plan to eliminate extreme poverty include existing programs that beneficiaries get preferential access to as well as new programs tailored to beneficiaries and implemented by the agency managing the conditional cash transfers. The single registry coordinates efforts by containing data on 78 million low-income Brazilians and is used for targeting programs. The productive inclusion component provides both urban assistance like skills training and job placement, and rural assistance like technical assistance, improved seeds, and production grants.

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Productive Inclusion in Brazil –
Bolsa Familia and the Brazil
without extreme Poverty Plan
1st Kenyan Social Protection Conference Week
28th Jan 2015
Fabio Veras Soares – IPC-IG

2. Bolsa Familia in Brazil
Objectives of Bolsa Familia as a CCT programme:
Poverty alleviation (cash transfer) and break intergenerational cycle of
poverty (human development)
 But it differed from many CCTs in the LAC region
 Origins in municipal level experiences in the middle 1990’s
 Dissemination of Federal CTs in the early 2000’s
 Establishment of the Single Registry (2001)
 Merge of CCT/CTs programmes under Bolsa Familia (October 2003)
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3. Bolsa Familia in Brazil some key features
Rapid scaling up (no pilots)
Mean testing (targeting)
Adjustments were made as the programme expanded:
 Financial incentives for municipalities and later states (IGD)
 Monitoring of conditionalities – links with social assistance
 Improvements of the quality of the Single Registry (v.7)
Integration into the Social Protection Framework:
 Its role in the Hunger Zero strategy
 Its role as one of the income security components of Brazil without extreme
poverty (Brasil sem Miseria) programme.
 Role of complementary programmes.
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4. Complementary programmes are mostly…
 existing programmes already implemented by other ministries/
agencies, but CCT beneficiaries do not necessarily benefit from
these programmes.
 existing programmes already implemented by other ministries/
agencies. CCT beneficiaries are granted preferential access.
(challenges: how to guarantee high take‐up rates, how to guarantee that existing
programmes are adequate to the profile of CCT beneficiaries)
 Tailor‐made programmes specific for non‐beneficiaires and
implemented by the same agency responsible for the CCT
(Challenges: how to guarantee the institutional sustainability of these interventions
(NGOs), how to guarantee the quality of these complementary programmes,
Christmas tree effect – CCTs are responsible for the poverty alleviation strategy)
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5. Complementary Programmes
Integrated system – single registries of potential beneficiaries can
support effective complementary programmes …
 connecting database from different ministries and facilitate case
management and complementarities (Brazil and Peru)
 It takes away from the CCTs the responsibility of being the silver
bullet against poverty – they are part of a broader strategy.
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6. Brazil without Extreme Poverty Plan(2011)
Context: Priority for the eradication of extreme poverty according to three axes, based
on successful programmes.
Hypertargeting to guarantee access to universal rights.
Income security:
i.Eradication of exclusion errors in cash transfer programmes (active search)
ii.Gradually filling in the extreme poverty gap.
Access to services: health, education, social assistance, civil documents, electricity,
housing and food security
Productive inclusion:
i.Urban – training, job placement, support to microentrepreneurs
ii.Rural – technical assistance/extension, grants and PAA
•Investment of R$ 109 billion / USD 43 billion between 2011‐2014
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7. Brazil without Extreme Poverty (2011)
• Definition of target population:
Extreme poverty line: below R$ 70 per capita family income.
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Population % Urban % Rural %
Brazil 16,267,197 100% 8.673.845 53% 7.593.352 47%
North 2,658,452 17% 1.158.501 44% 1.499.951 56%
Northeast 9,609,803 59% 4.560.486 48% 5.049.317 52%
Southeast 2,725,532 17% 2.144.624 79% 580.908 21%
South 715,961 4% 437.346 61% 278.615 39%
Centre-west 557,449 3% 372.888 67% 184.561 33%
Source: SESEP/MDS

8. BSM coordination: role of the single registry
 Single registry is a census of the Brazilian low income population (1/2 minimum
wage per capita). About 78 million people (36% of the population)
 The registry contains the basic person and household identification and profile
data, grouped in 6 basic sets of data:
 individual identification
 family identification
 household characteristics
 schooling information
 work
 income information
 There are other supplementary data collection such as household expenditures,
participation in social programmes, traditional communities’ characteristics
(quilombola and indigenous population) and vulnerable groups (homeless, child
labor), smallholder farmers.
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9. BSM coordination: role of the single registry
 Single registry is a census of the Brazilian low income population (1/2 minimum
wage per capita). About 78 million people (36% of the population)
 The registry contains the basic person and household identification and profile
data, grouped in 6 basic sets of data.
 individual identification
 family identification
 household characteristics
 schooling information
 work
 income information
 INFORMATION IS VALID FOR 2 YEARS
 There are other supplementary data collection such as household expenditures,
participation in social programmes, traditional communities’ characteristics
(quilombola and indigenous population) and vulnerable groups (homeless, child
labor), smallholder farmers. 8

10. Targeting: role of the single registry
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11. BSM coordination: role of the single registry
Poverty Map
(census data)
Fostering capabilities and
opportunities
Fostering capabilities and
opportunities
Objective:
To incrase family per capita income and
to improve living conditions and well‐being of low income families
Objective:
To incrase family per capita income and
to improve living conditions and well‐being of low income families
Income
guarantee
Income
guarantee
Productive Inclusion:
urban and rural strategies
Productive Inclusion:
urban and rural strategies
Access to
public services
Access to
public services
Single
Registry
Active
Search

12. BSM Productive Inclusion component
URBAN
Productive
Inclusion
RURAL
• Rural extension and technical
assistance
• Access to inputs (improved
seeds)
• Production grants
Improved production
Employment and income
generation
• Skill building/training
• job placement
• Solidarity economy
• Microcredit
• Microentrepreneurship (MEI)

13. BSM: productive inclusion component
Improved seeds Investment grant
Improved production
Access to Markets (PAA and PNAE) Self-consumption
Water for All
Goal: increase productive capacity
:Case Management: extension services
Electricity for all
Green grant
Source: SESEP/MDS

14. BSM challenges: rural productive inclusion
 Merging information from the single registry and database on smallholder
farmers (DAP) at the Federal level
 Capacity and adequacy of extension services
 Identification of the families at the local level – coordination with active
search
 Approval of the joint work plan to have access to the investment grants
 Worst drought in 50 years (adaptation of extension services)
 Lack of rigorous impact evaluation (staggered entry was ideal setting –
missed opportunity).
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15. BSM achievements: rural productive inclusion
 Possibility to use the infrastructure as a disaster risk management tool:
Drought grant – single registry and payment system.
 Gendered impacts – agricultural interventions become gender-sensitive.
Women participation in the PAA increased from 26% in 2011 to 36% in
2014.
 PAA became more accessible to poor smallholder farmers: in 2010 – only
32% of the PAA suppliers were in the Single Registry in 2013 this figure
increased to 50%.
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16. BSM rural productive inclusion: technical assistance
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Source: SESEP/MDS

17. BSM rural productive inclusion: investment grant
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Source: SESEP/MDS

18. BSM rural productive inclusion: cisterns
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Source: SESEP/MDS
6,543
43,000 78,955
151,315
194,176 224,122
292,825
329,827
417,568
572,961
810,858
1,055,755
‐
200,000
400,000
600,000
800,000
1,000,000
1,200,000
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Sep‐14

19. Many Thanks
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