Yara Aquino     Reporter Agência Brasil

Brasília – In Manaus, speaking at a ceremony for the rollout of the government’s Brazil Without Misery program in the North region of the country, before an audience of seven governors and mayors from all over the Amazon, president Dilma Rousseff declared that Brazil’s social assistance policies and programs were tools enabling Brazil to confront the world financial crisis.

“We are a substantial part of this great defensive barrier that is our domestic market. So when the country grows, when the country invests, when the country consumes, when the country implants social assistance programs, we are stronger. And we are not easy prey for any international crisis. We have the force to face this crisis because we improved income distribution. …Brazil is showing the world that growth is income distribution and that income distribution is growth.”

Dilma also revealed that the outreach of Brazil Without Misery will expand following recent approval of appropriate legislation (“regulamentado”) to include a new subsidy, Bolsa Verde, that will pay families that use natural resources in a sustainable manner (“familias extrativistas”) a total of R$300 per quarter. According to the minister of the Environment, the goal of the Bolsa Verde program is to enroll 18,000 families by the end of this year and 75,000 families by the end of 2014.

As part of the poverty reduction programs, a series of contracts were signed with local supermarkets for the sale of local produce from family farms.

The Ministry of Social Development reports that 17% of the target families in the Brazil Without Misery program are in the North region. Most of them (56%) are in rural areas. The minister of Social Development, Tereza Campello, explained that the problem in the North region is aggravated by the fact that the poor are widely dispersed over a huge area. Brazil Without Misery was launched in June and aims to raise 16.2 million people out of extreme poverty by the end of 2014.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English

Link - "Brasil não é presa fácil para a crise", diz Dilma