 The World Bank has strengthened emphasis on working with government, communities, and other partners to ensure that support benefits Brazil's overall development. The following are some examples where assistance has resulted in a positive impact on the ground.
Education
The Fundescola Program, a community-managed program that begun in 1998 and is now in its third phase, aims to ensure that children complete their primary education cycle. That goal reflects the nature of Brazil’s education problem – persistently high drop-out rates in the poorest areas. But, partly as a result of Fundescola, the population of 7-14-year-olds not attending school fell from 20% in 1992 to 5% in 2000.
Health The Family Health Program was launched in 1994 in order to ensure medical attention to vulnerable groups, who had been neglected under an earlier strategy that emphasized hospital care. The new initiative has created primary-care networks in poor areas throughout Brazil. Six years into the program, it was reaching about 25% of the population. The significant reduction in infant mortality was one result. Vaccination coverage and child nutrition also improved. Brazil developed one of the most aggressive, far-reaching strategies in the world to slow the rate of HIV/AIDSinfection and to care for those already stricken by the virus. One noteworthy result was a drop in the number of AIDS deaths to 8,400 in 2001 – a reduction of nearly 50% from the 15,200 fatalities in 1995. Programs include massive distribution of condoms (more than 180 million have been given out), needle-exchange programs for IV drug-users, and training of nearly 4,000 teachers and 33,000 students in HIV/AIDS-prevention. Rural Development Responding to the relatively modest results of past approaches aimed at rural poverty, Brazil and the World Bank formulated a strategy aimed at providing five possible routes out of poverty: small-scale farming, employment in an expanded agribusiness sector, employment in food processing and services; training to allow migration to urban areas; pensions for older people with no job prospects beyond subsistence farming. Natural Resources Water- Brazil has one of the world’s largest reserves of fresh water. Yet, the poor are largely bypassed by water and sanitation systems. They are also disproportionately affected by water pollution. Programs in some of Brazil’s key urban areas, including São Paulo, cleaned up rivers that cross the cities, and were designed to also stimulate other improvements in living conditions. Water and sewerage systems are being designed for urban slums, as well as for rural areas in the Northeast. On a structural level, water system management is being decentralized, and methods to promote efficient use of water are being developed. Rain Forest- One of the world’s ecological treasures, the Amazon rainforest, lies largely within Brazil’s borders. Preserving it, while devising ways for its inhabitants to make a living harvesting its bounty of hardwoods and other resources, is a major challenge. A $350 million trust fund managed by the World Bank is part of a program that demarcated a 9.5 million-hectare indigenous lands zone and sponsored experimental projects in 160 communities that aim to develop new approaches to sustainable development. Livable Cities  - Over the past decade, Brazil embarked on a decentralization strategy that led to a series of development projects using local managerial and fiscal resources in the South and Northeast. Among the resources made available were Municipal Development Funds underwritten by the World Bank, which now account for about 10% of credit available to cities. In the state of Bahia, the World Bank is a 50% participant in the Bahia Municipal Infrastructure Development and Management project, whose projects have benefited more than 200,000 families. For information in Portuguese, visit the Brazil country office web site at http://www.bancomundial.org.br  Learn more about  How the World Bank Measures Results.
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