International Conference REGIONAL GOVERNANCE IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT - PDF document

International Conference “REGIONAL GOVERNANCE IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT” WORKSHOP SESSION 3 Regional Inequalities within Emerging Countries 12 – may – 2009 / 09:30 – 12:00 hs MÁRCIA REGINA SARTORI DAMO Secretary for Regional Programs Ministry of National Integration Brazil Seul le texte prononcé fait foi Check against delivery Es gilt das gesprochene Wort Mr. President of this session and Director-General of the European Comission, Mr. Dirk Ahner; Other table partners, Mr. Alex Kremer, World Bank Representant; Mr. Toussant Abel Coulibaly, Vice-Minister of Burkina Faso; Professor acques François Thisse, from the Catholic University of Leuven; Professor Sergeu Artobolevskiy; from the Russian Science Academy; and Mr. Soumaïla Cissé, from the West African Economic and Monetary Unioc (WAEMU). Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me first thank, on behalf of brazilian Ministry of National Integration, the invitation to participate in this Conference, where I come with great satisfaction, not only because of its theme, but also for the opportunity it is to enhance the remarkable cooperation we

have been building with European Union, towards the exchange of experiences, focused on brazilian and european development policies. Promptly going to the main point of this session, I start tackling the dimension of the inequalities in my country, through a comparision between some relevant indicators presented by the geographic Brazilian’s micro-regions. This first picture shows us the population density of Brazil. This distribution reveals that the majority of our population is established near the coastline areas, state capitals or big metropolis. The existence of urban centers dispersed in the country, is also showed, for example Brasília, Manaus and Goiânia. In these areas we may find demographical densities higher than 54 inhabitants per square kilometers. On the opposite side of this high coastline density we have in the midland part of our country some areas where the demographical density is less than 11 inhabitants per Km², for example in the North and Center-West regions and in parts of the Northeastern Semi- Arid. In these low density areas, the occupation is associated with the low absorption capacity of labor; with the low dynamism of their activities; or with their late and inefficient integration with the more dynamic areas of the country. May I observe that the low population density in Amazonia is normally also associated to environmental conservation unities or marked areas for native indians. Despite the high coastline density, we have been observing a slow but constant changing in occupation standards in the early two

decades, with a clear improvement on the midland occupation process, as shown in this second picture. When analyzing the socio-economic characteristics of the population, we note a change in the coast/midland contrast, which has been replaced for a new Northern/Southern contrast, showing strong regional differences. As an example, in this next picture we may observe that the percentage of adult people with a maximum of 4 years study is greater in the upper side of the map, as to say, in the North, Northeast and part of Center-West Regions. As we observe the next picture, we may identify a clear division of Brazil into two, due to the concentration of the adult population with more than 12 years study in the southeastern and southern regions. Is noted, thus, that we still have regional educational inequalities which certainly demands strong efforts to be solved. In this way, the last 10 year, we have been increasing the offering of education in our regions for the last 10 years, conscious that government and society must share the responsibilities on prioritize investments on education. Another dimension that points to substantial inequalities is the urbanization level. In the picture now showing, we see high urbanization levels in the South, Southeast and Center-West regions. These areas, except for some spots in the center of Parana, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul States, are characterized by the highest urbanization levels when compared to North and Northeast regions, exception made to state capitals and main midland urban poles. Regions that present lower urbanization levels are also basically rural areas.

In general, areas with low educational levels coincide to those with less urbanization levels. This situation leads us to a new idea that the development in Brazil passes through a new approach to the rural environment, which includes the necessity of providing, in smaller urban poles, the strengthening of necessary essential services. The same pattern so far illustrated is also shown in the distribution of average domestic incomes levels per inhabitant in each micro- region, compared to the brazilian average, here represented as a territorial attribute. As shown in the picture, the micro-regional percentages highlight areas in which this proportion is observed as being much lower, ranging from 16 to 33% of national average. These areas, mainly located in North and Northeast regions, are also less frequently identified in other micro-regions in the South, Southeast and Center- West regions. Negative rates of Gross Domestic Products are also associated to these areas. Extremely opposed to this, there are some areas with income levels that reaches the national average. These are located, predominantly, in the South and Southeast regions and constitute themselves in regions which had been always incorporated to the economic dynamics of the country, or so are to be in a short term, as the cases of commercial farming of corn, cotton and soy. In the same situation can be named some areas closed articulated to areas of urban concentration, such as metropolis regions or state capitals in the Northeast. The next picture, which gathers information regarding the economic dynamics, expressed by the micro-regional GDP, shows us the

inexistence of a well-defined regional pattern, what helps us to explain the population movements and migration towards better socio-economic opportunities. The midland areas are remarked from the coaster ones. The agricultural and cattle rising activities, characteristic of the last decade, seem to oppose themselves to the urban-industrial economic crisis, started at the end of the 80’s. In synthesis, the analysis of the presented information outpoints: a) the cohexistence, all over Brazil, of dynamic, competitive sub regions, presenting high income rates, with sub regions that present poor life conditions and traces of economic stagnation; b) the presence of micro-regional demographic dynamics and GDP growth that mark a disperse territorial profile, in a context of low aggregated economic growth and falling rates of natural expansion of the population. c) the persistence of an expressive macro-regional model to the differentiation of the main variable points, high lightening the distance between the North/Northeast regions and the South/Southeast, as well as the Center- West to a certain point. d) the high difference among income level and other variable points presented by Amazon and Northeastern Semi-arid, in relation to other regions. In order to deal with these presented inequalities, Brazil has been adopting mechanisms and instruments that, although being implemented since the end of 90’s decade, have been

institutionalized only in February of 2007, through a Presidential Decree. Actions then running were consolidated under a major public policy for the national strategic planning process, the National Regional Development Policy, which started to stimulate different government sectors to incorporate in their acting procedures additional efforts in order to improve internal integration, as well as with State and Municipalities governments, opening space for the largest as possible participation of organized civil society. This public policy holds therefore different instances of articulation, formulation and operation, according to the basic scales of intervention. The national instance is that over which general criteria for actions in the territories are taken, where selected sub-regions are defined for the national regional development policy interventions to be made, as well as those to be the object of other public policies. Regarding macro-regional instances, it prevails activities of creating strategic development plans, articulation of actions and promotion of special initiatives. This instance is specially relevant in North and Northeast, partially in Center-West, where the regional development mission embraces substantial parts of the respective territories and demands a considerable level of actions integration in a scale higher than the sub-regional one. In this way, the re-creation of the Superintendence for Northeast Development – SUDENE, the Superintendence for Amazonia Development – SUDAM and the Superintendence for Center-West Development – SUDECO, has properly come in order to fill the necessity of having this kind of agencies, which are able to