Brasília, November 17, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Two billion dollars are guaranteed for the Brazilian government to invest in the Family Grant program. The resources are from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and will be transferred in two stages, the first of them starting tomorrow (18).

According to the president of the IDB, Enrique Iglesias, Brazil is preparing itself to fulfill the goals of the millenium, approved by 189 heads of state in the United Nations General Assembly in 2000. Iglesias explained that Brazil has made progress in the areas of health, education, and ending infant mortality and poverty and has made efforts aimed at meeting the goal of ending hunger by 2015.

International agencies, according to Iglesias, can help through investments and technical support. He recalled that one of the eight objectives of the millenium is to establish international partnership to diminish the foreign debt of debtor countries. "We have the greatest confidence in the area of trade, and this is aimed directly at the developed countries. They are the ones that have to back multilateral negotiations."

In a message delivered to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Iglesias pointed out that, already in his first term of office, the world has witnessed Lula's effort to consolidate a responsible macroeconomic policy and implement structural reforms with an enormous potential to increase social equality.

Iglesias observed that the Family Grant is an example of a program aimed directly at improving the income of the poorest families, strengthening the beneficiaries' obligations "to the education and health of their children and investing in the future to break the cycle of reproducing poverty." (DAS)