Brazil’s current “Plano Plurianual (PPA) 2016-19: Desenvolvimento, produtividade e inclusão social” [Plurennial Plan 2016-2019: Development, Productivity and Social Inclusion] builds on a vision guided by social inclusion and the promotion of a dynamic economy. The PPA includes annotations on resource expenditure from the budgets of ministries and state-owned enterprises and allocated on programmes related to its goals. The four strategic axes of the plan give special attention to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10 (reduced inequalities) and SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure) (ECLAC, 2018). The plan includes productivity and competitiveness-enhancing policies. These include co-operation between the state and the private sector, research as a means of economic development and a fiscal balance policy to readjust public finances in view of the tax reform.
The plan has a focus on improving people’s lives and productivity through human capital accumulation. The axes of “quality education” and “social inclusion and reduction of inequalities” address the vulnerable population. Brazil’s plan also aims to increase the state’s operational capacity and its performance. It includes policies that increase the quality of public services and spending, transparency, communication and social participation, such as preventing and fighting corruption. These tasks are carried out by means of qualified monitoring instruments and structures in each of the institutional actors’ actions.
In terms of public financing capacities, Brazil’s total tax revenues were 32.2% of GDP in 2016 (vs. 22.7% in LAC and 34.3% in the OECD). The country introduced e-invoicing in 2008, which is now mandatory for all business-to-business transactions. With the implementation of its digital bookkeeping system (SPED in Portuguese), authorities have increased total federal taxes collected without increasing the tax rate. Brazil is a signatory of the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Exchange of Country-by-Country Reports and of the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information to fight tax evasion.
At the same time, international co-operation has played an important role in the Brazilian development strategy for decades. Brazil’s multilateral strategy focuses on maintaining an active role in international institutions dealing with development and co-operation issues. Brazil’s South-South strategy is aligned with the Brazilian foreign policy and it seeks to contribute to the promotion of the three internationally agreed dimensions of the sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) in other developing countries, in accordance with their national plans, priorities and strategies. The Brazilian Co-operation Agency (ABC in Portuguese) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has the legal mandate to co-ordinate technical and humanitarian co-operation with partner-countries, especially in LAC and Africa, but also in Asia, Europe and Middle East.
In what concerns trilateral co-operation with multilateral agencies, the major partners of Brazil are FAO and WFP (food and nutritional security), ILO (decent work) and UNFPA (demography), with focus on countries in LAC and Africa. Brazil also co-operates with countries in Africa, especially Portuguese-speaking ones, such as Mozambique with whom it has implemented over 50 co-operation projects, in themes such as agriculture productivity and food security, urban development, healthcare for women and children, capacity building for justice operators and modernisation of the social welfare and pension system.
