Institutional reform and government coordination in Brazil’s social protection policy

This study, now being published posthumously, examines Brazil’s recent experience in formulating and implementing government social policies and assesses the prospects for establishing a “social authority” for centralizing and coordinating such policies. It describes the complex pattern of exclusion and vulnerability against which social reforms must be instituted in Brazil. It then goes on to review the social development strategy adopted as part of the Plano Real in 1994, which seeks to restructure the financing, outlays and benefits of the social protection system in order to increase its effectiveness, coverage and redistributive impact. Finally, it analyses the coordination of federal social policies, especially at the macropolitical and intergovernmental level, drawing special attention to the creation of sectoral chambers and policy integration mechanisms to replace former bureaucratic coordination structures.