Professor Ed Amann outlines how Brazil has been able to bridge the urban - rural divide and what African countries might learn from its success. Read more at www.Brazil4Africa.org

1. Spatial inclusion in
Africa: Learning
from the Brazilian
Experience
Dr Edmund Amann,
IRIBA, University of
Manchester
www.brazil4africa.org

2. Establish well-targeted cash transfer
programmes:
Well targeted cash transfers reduce the divide. How?
• Increase rural incomes and encourage school participation rates
• Adult labour force participation rates rise with programme
coverage
• Evidence of stronger effects in poorer districts

3. Invest in agricultural technology:
Effective absorption of foreign agricultural technologies and creation of indigenous
ones can boost agricultural productivity and revive the fortunes of rural areas.

4. Invest in vocational training:
Brazil has a well developed vocational training system (SENAI).
This helps to:
• Increase rural productivity and earnings
• Provide scope for occupational mobility and migration to areas
where skills are in demand
• Provide the basis for structural diversification in the rural
economy

5. The distributional importance of positive
change in the rural labour markets
Improvements in agricultural productivity, training and other structural factors underpin improvements in
rural wages. This has wider effects:
• The Gini coefficient for the Brazil’s distribution of household per capita income fell by 12%, from
0.59 in 1995 to 0.52 in 2012.
• Around 50% of this decline can be attributed to changes in the distribution of labour earnings.
• New findings from the IRIBA project highlight the importance of demographic, spatial and
institutional factors in explaining the decrease in earnings inequality in Brazil.
• The changes in pay structure can be understood as declines in various different wage premia:
• This was characterized by reductions in the gender wage gap, the racial wage gap and the urban-rural
wage gap (with wages rising faster in rural areas).

7. Invest in infrastructure:
This is a critical area. Appropriate investment can:
• Provide better market access for rural enterprises
• Reduce input costs
• Address legacy of underinvestment and misconfiguration of
infrastructure for rural needs
Brazil has launched an ambitious infrastructure programme: PACII

8. • While majority of projects have been completed, investment in certain critical subsectors
including urban transportation and sanitation, have met with significant delay
• We found that if Brazilian states increase their spending by 1%, the regional GDP growth rate
would increase by 0. 11% per year.
• Investment in transport infrastructure is likely to yield better results than investments in
communications or energy
Source: Brazilian
Government

9. Read more at:
www.Brazil4Africa.org