BARE

EXPOSURE:
American
Empowerment Brazilian
April 28, 2011: America could use a good Brazilian to straighten out our exposed regions. Discomforting
at first, fear-inspiring for sure, the preparation for a public representation of our sensitive areas might
ultimately make us, as a nation, more attractive to those who value the true beauty of raw honesty.

Of course, by “Brazilian” we’re not referring to a waxing or bikini trim. Instead, we’re referring to the
cleaning up of the private regions of our national presumptions of engagement and empowerment. The
proverbial sensitive spaces where we lay bare our rules and expectations of transparency regarding
what we do for our people and others.

What caught our attention were some recent policy papers on assessing the development over the last
few years of what the Brazilian government calls Projeto Fome Zero, or the Zero Hunger Project.
Designed and represented as a food security initiative, it is really a culture- and government-wide
proactive effort to challenge head-on the nearly unrestrained catastrophes of hunger and malnutrition
and its associated endemic foundation of massive poverty. Estimates in these papers suggested that
when first conceived in about 1996, some 60% of the entire population was living with serious economic
and dietary impairment. (The paper we draw on here is entitled “BRAZIL, Projeto Fome Zero: Report of the Joint
FAO/IDB/WB/Transition Team Working Group. The document can be found online but does not have a date, though it can be deduced that it
was likely prepared in about 2002 or 2003. The transition team refers to those working during the inauguration of President, Luiz Inácio Lula da
Silva, who would later be identified as the nation’s most favored and beloved leader when he left office this past January 2011.)

Notable for many reasons (which we will write about soon for other project on food empowerment),
what caught our attention were two main points. One regarding the necessity of the approach (which
we believe mirrors the case for serious focus on the US and global obesity pandemic) and the other
regarding the effort’s underlying empowerment tenets.

Here is the outstanding quote regarding the impact of a successful anti-hunger project, whose goal is to
cut in half the need for an adequate diet among the most severely hampered peoples by the year 2015
(which corresponds to world Millennium Development Goals):

Hunger robs far too many Brazilians of a full life, infringing the most fundamental of human
rights, the right to adequate food. Hunger thwarts children’s learning abilities, reduces the
productivity of working adults, makes people susceptible to illness and provokes early death,
perpetuating poverty and detracting from economic growth. Hunger passes from one generation
to another, as undernourished mothers beget underweight children. And hunger provokes
desperation, providing a fertile breeding ground for crime, insurrection and terror.

American Empowerment Brazilian

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The second set of related quotes include two lists of relevant bullet points. We present them as quoted,
reflecting the specifics of Zero Hunger. Our delight, however, comes from accepting that what is said so
easily translates to other projects with no silly concerns about the socialistic or communistic implications
of the effort. The paper notes these aspects for building the institutional framework:

• Reinforce existing mechanisms through which the people participate in decision-making;

• Design flexible institutional arrangements which ensure that actions respond to local conditions
and demands, as expressed by the target population themselves. Rather than simply be the passive
recipients of programmes, the people should be encouraged to articulate their own requirements and
define their own survival strategies, adjusting technical and institutional proposals to their particular
situation within the general objectives of PFZ;
• Bring the municipal councils closer to the communities. Beyond thinking how the municipal
councils might contribute to the implementation of PFZ, it is necessary to consider how they can better
reflect the views of communities and of the people who will participate in PFZ [emphasis added for
obvious reasons];
• Encourage an area focus, in which an integrated approach is adopted to make the best use of
local human and physical resources, and synergy is generated between the different programmes and
policies operating within the same area;
• Improve the performance of existing participative mechanisms, both at municipal and
community level, through strengthening training and communication programmes;
• Link local actions in support of PFZ to community education and the promotion of local
leadership capacities, representative of poor people;
• Strengthen the engagement of the population in programme supervision and monitoring.

Just as impressively, the following highlights were noted because they are logically suggested by the
outline above – up to and including new organizations that ensure those most in need are treated fairly
and given a voice in what happens. As the report put this:

• Promote large-scale training and capacity building activities, using participative methods, to
empower people who are excluded from current support programmes as well as those who receive food
assistance through broadening their access to knowledge and skills through which they can reduce their
dependency;
• Support processes which lead to the emergence of genuinely representative local leadership
and engage people in jointly defined programmes and projects for increasing food production locally
and broadening access to food;
• Encourage the development of activities which make good use of the resources and potential of
the target population, based on survival strategies which they themselves define;
• Engage the target population in the market economy – whether the market for goods, the
labour market or the consumer market – as a means of deepening their participation in society;
• Open up public discussion and debate, so as to increase transparency and limit the
opportunities for political patronage.

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Over the course of nearly a decade, the evidence is profound that this project not only works in fact but
does so better than other approaches. At least two nations (India and Mexico) have given serious
consideration to the implications of the project for their needs. One of these outside reviewers went so
far as to note an astounding lack of corruption in the program, in no small part because of the respect
for local powers and realities, and because the person given access to the money and other resources is
the mother of the family most in need. (Don’t even get us started on the women’s empowerment
showcasing that this deserves!)

This is an extraordinary lying bare of an ideal. America, under the direction of a change-oriented chief
executive, needs to consider the implications of this kind of thinking and acting. He and the First Family
might well be able to use such models to demonstrate what they mean when the reach out for change
that we can all count on in pursuit of a healthy menu of liberty and justice for us all.

[Note: We have recently begun writing about these issues on food topics through two sites of our own. One
regarding honey and cheese empowerment, which is viewable at http://honeycheeseguys.wordpress.com. Two
being the newest site on our Nickel-a-Meal Campaign Against Obesity, http://nickelameal.wordpress.com. ]

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