Brazil’s growth has been curtailed by a substandard education system, social inequality, and structural, bureaucratic and economic difficulties that impede social improvements and innovation. Global crises have further exacerbated the country’s performance. In this context, FGV Projetos, in partnership with the Competitive Brazil Movement, have written a document called “Brazilian Agenda 2034,” which sets out measures to promote the country’s sustainable development over the next 12 years. In an unprecedented way, it presents the main demands and needs of Brazil’s civil society and private sector.

The document, launched on April 14 at an event attended by the minister for planning and budgeting, Simone Tebet, indicates ways to improve the domestic economy’s results, ensure social advances and enhance Brazil’s competitiveness in international markets, based on three high priority macro goals:

• Raise average per capita GDP growth to 2.0% per year;
• Increase Brazil’s Human Development Index score to 0.864;
• Get Brazil into the top 30 in the competitiveness ranking in the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Report.
   

“Next week, the government will launch its Multi-Year Plan at an event attended by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In May and June, we will visit all the country’s state capitals to talk to councils and civil society. It will be the most participatory Multi-Year Plan in Brazil’s history and for the first time it will have an online platform,” Tebet said.

“This is a systemic plan that sets out our cross-cutting priorities for Brazil’s socioeconomic development. The objective is to give Brazil a vision of the future, thereby helping achieve what society expects and promoting initiatives that the public authorities need to put on the agenda,” explained Rogério Caiuby, a member of the Competitive Brazil Movement’s Executive Board.

“Our challenge was to present a new kind of document. Based on extensive analysis and consultation, working with the Competitive Brazil Movement, we were able to set tangible goals, supported by governance, to bring about great benefits for the country,” said Luiz Gustavo Medeiros Barbosa, the executive manager of FGV Projetos.

The agenda is underpinned by six strategic themes

In addition to in-depth analysis, Brazilian Agenda 2034 sets out purposes, goals, indicators to be monitored and more than 300 proposals designed to strengthen the agenda’s six broad themes and achieve the objectives.

In the social area, six purposes were established, including measures to promote formal and inclusive employment and universal, high-quality health care coverage. The goals include informal employment of no more than 20% of total employment, the eradication of extreme poverty, and 100% high-quality health care coverage, up from 75% now. In order to achieve the latter goal, the document proposes to improve the efficiency of the public health system’s management by reviewing management and planning processes at all levels of government, and to improve procurement, with a stronger focus on regional planning.

The economy theme has two subcategories – Macroeconomic Environment and Productive Sectors – and 12 purposes, including the elimination of the “Brazil Cost” (the huge cost of doing business in Brazil) as a priority for growth; guaranteed fiscal balance; reindustrialization to generate value for domestic production; and the promotion of digital transformation in the private sector. In this area, 18 goals were defined, including a reduction of the Brazil Cost to 10% of GDP, increasing public and private sector investment in research and development, and enhanced digital maturity of micro and small enterprises.

One of the country’s great challenges, education, is another one of the document’s broad themes. The purposes are functional literacy of all citizens; digital literacy and encouragement of innovation in basic, professional and higher education; and the expansion of vocational and technological education in secondary education. The goals include having 100% of the population with functional reading, writing and mathematics skills (at the moment, just 37% of people are fully literate and 6.6% are illiterate), and ensuring that 50% of students are enrolled in vocational secondary education, so that they are better prepared to join the job market.

In the infrastructure area, connectivity and data infrastructure throughout the country is seen as fundamental to leveraging digital transformation and improving the Brazilian economy’s results. One of the goals is to ensure that all Brazilian municipalities have access to high-quality broadband. To achieve this, the document proposes, among other things, to encourage, support and invest in projects to democratize access to the internet and public services in cities.

When it comes to the environment, the report focuses on productive restructuring to achieve a low-carbon economy and urban planning, concentrating on sustainable land use, water and air quality, among other priorities. In this area, there are four targets, including a 55% reduction in carbon emissions by 2034 and zero illegal deforestation.

Governance is the sixth broad theme of Brazilian Agenda 2034. The main challenge is to help the state implement initiatives and projects to drive the country’s growth and development. It is important to emphasize that governance does not imply more bureaucracy, but instead reflects the path taken to achieve established objectives. “The intention is to propose balanced, responsible and inclusive growth for Brazil in the medium and long term. We understand that in order for the country to develop, we need some complex transformations and the state has to adopt a clear vision,” Barbosa said.

Methodology used

Brazilian Agenda 2034 brings together points in common from various documents about what the country ought to be like in future, in order to identify high priority demands. The first phase of the project involved an unprecedented analysis of more than 100 documents produced by civil society organizations, the private sector and government agencies.

The second stage of the project involved qualitative interviews with representatives of different sectors of the Brazilian economy. This work was used to define the six broad themes addressed by the agenda: Social, Environment, Infrastructure, Economy, Education and Governance. In addition, in this stage, the purposes, goals and indicators that will be used to measure results in future were also established.

To finalize the construction of the agenda, technical experts in each broad area were interviewed to identify whether the actions presented were in accordance with established needs.

Even though the agenda has now been set, the project is still in its infancy, as explained by the Competitive Brazil Movement’s Rogério Caiuby. “One extremely important point on our agenda is that the indicators will be monitored and communicated by an observatory, to be launched in the second half of this year. We want this monitoring to be transparent so that everyone can closely track the evolution in each area. The observatory will also serve as a compass to help the country adjust its strategies, change course and identify new opportunities that can contribute to building the country we hope to be in 2034,” he said.

To find out more about Brazilian Agenda 2034, click here.