Dubai Telegraph - Hunger in G20 host Brazil is Lula's unfinished fight

EUR -
AED 3.866955
AFN 72.068071
ALL 97.96268
AMD 410.784813
ANG 1.912938
AOA 960.166791
ARS 1050.977028
AUD 1.628194
AWG 1.895066
AZN 1.800113
BAM 1.951452
BBD 2.143046
BDT 126.837419
BGN 1.957984
BHD 0.396768
BIF 3134.302207
BMD 1.052814
BND 1.418533
BOB 7.334659
BRL 6.108712
BSD 1.061445
BTN 89.497258
BWP 14.401914
BYN 3.473644
BYR 20635.162949
BZD 2.139048
CAD 1.474709
CDF 3016.313099
CHF 0.936552
CLF 0.037221
CLP 1027.051998
CNY 7.626693
CNH 7.636047
COP 4722.441266
CRC 541.992496
CUC 1.052814
CUP 27.899583
CVE 110.019887
CZK 25.285451
DJF 189.010699
DKK 7.458232
DOP 63.927576
DZD 140.602323
EGP 51.954531
ERN 15.792217
ETB 129.54359
FJD 2.396153
FKP 0.831004
GBP 0.831932
GEL 2.874049
GGP 0.831004
GHS 17.14181
GIP 0.831004
GMD 74.749535
GNF 9147.446645
GTQ 8.201727
GYD 222.065261
HKD 8.193407
HNL 26.797298
HRK 7.509998
HTG 139.558415
HUF 407.071782
IDR 16789.442377
ILS 3.937437
IMP 0.831004
INR 88.927393
IQD 1390.422091
IRR 44315.590814
ISK 146.320304
JEP 0.831004
JMD 168.035634
JOD 0.746657
JPY 164.155901
KES 136.076314
KGS 90.938425
KHR 4300.398724
KMF 490.980229
KPW 947.532593
KRW 1478.583067
KWD 0.323877
KYD 0.884542
KZT 523.161902
LAK 23310.28845
LBP 95050.394414
LKR 310.231782
LRD 200.038234
LSL 19.067501
LTL 3.108687
LVL 0.636837
LYD 5.142592
MAD 10.553787
MDL 19.12657
MGA 4952.965296
MKD 61.587323
MMK 3419.500221
MNT 3577.463398
MOP 8.504175
MRU 42.253863
MUR 49.682017
MVR 16.265744
MWK 1840.499554
MXN 21.732343
MYR 4.717137
MZN 67.225692
NAD 19.067591
NGN 1773.445042
NIO 39.062787
NOK 11.757716
NPR 143.221916
NZD 1.79557
OMR 0.405343
PAB 1.061435
PEN 4.022838
PGK 4.266414
PHP 61.952874
PKR 294.912167
PLN 4.338674
PYG 8283.623607
QAR 3.869779
RON 4.976547
RSD 116.989756
RUB 105.284944
RWF 1456.854276
SAR 3.954354
SBD 8.826328
SCR 14.338018
SDG 633.269213
SEK 11.615333
SGD 1.41702
SHP 0.831004
SLE 24.019979
SLL 22076.997306
SOS 606.548671
SRD 37.143033
STD 21791.133205
SVC 9.287441
SYP 2645.227706
SZL 19.073506
THB 36.88328
TJS 11.309365
TMT 3.695379
TND 3.340757
TOP 2.465795
TRY 36.162891
TTD 7.213033
TWD 34.312064
TZS 2805.750792
UAH 43.849907
UGX 3895.321618
USD 1.052814
UYU 44.750301
UZS 13578.747927
VES 48.129878
VND 26741.486679
VUV 124.992245
WST 2.939027
XAF 654.498843
XAG 0.035116
XAU 0.000412
XCD 2.845283
XDR 0.799619
XOF 654.505046
XPF 119.331742
YER 262.98619
ZAR 19.314955
ZMK 9476.595013
ZMW 29.03459
ZWL 339.005819
  • RIO

    -0.1750

    60.445

    -0.29%

  • CMSC

    -0.0600

    24.55

    -0.24%

  • BTI

    0.1650

    35.585

    +0.46%

  • BCC

    -0.9150

    141.635

    -0.65%

  • CMSD

    0.0170

    24.747

    +0.07%

  • JRI

    0.0050

    13.245

    +0.04%

  • BCE

    0.0550

    27.265

    +0.2%

  • SCS

    -0.0580

    13.312

    -0.44%

  • NGG

    0.3000

    62.42

    +0.48%

  • RYCEF

    -0.1400

    6.97

    -2.01%

  • RELX

    0.2100

    46.33

    +0.45%

  • RBGPF

    -0.9400

    59.25

    -1.59%

  • BP

    0.3750

    28.945

    +1.3%

  • VOD

    0.0380

    8.788

    +0.43%

  • GSK

    0.1450

    35.255

    +0.41%

  • AZN

    0.1600

    65.45

    +0.24%

Hunger in G20 host Brazil is Lula's unfinished fight
Hunger in G20 host Brazil is Lula's unfinished fight / Photo: Pablo PORCIUNCULA - AFP

Hunger in G20 host Brazil is Lula's unfinished fight

In Neide Fernandes's fridge there is no meat, no vegetables, but there are some 20 eggs -- "the least expensive" animal protein she can afford.

Text size:

The 60-year-old former cashier lives with her husband and two adolescent grandchildren in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in a Rio de Janeiro squat.

The building was once a hotel in the city center. Now, naked electric wires run the length of its dark corridors.

"We don't have the money for three real meals a day," she said. Her family is among the 40 million Brazilians facing what the United Nations calls "food insecurity."

Hunger still stalks Brazil, Latin America's biggest economy, even if efforts have picked up to halt it.

The issue may seem counterintuitive for an agricultural powerhouse. But the lucrative side of Brazil's farming sector is soy and sugar exports, and not diet staples such as beans and rice.

Left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has made the fight against hunger a centerpiece of his mandate. The progress he has made will buoy his inauguration Monday of a "Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty" at the G20 summit in Rio.

- 'Made a difference' -

Since her husband became jobless eight years ago, Neide Fernandes has benefited from the Bolsa Familia, a welfare program championed by Lula that gives payments to families which ensure their children attend school.

"But with 600 reais (around $100) a month, we get almost nothing at the supermarket," she said.

In the last presidential election in 2022, Fernandes voted without hesitation for Lula, whose ambitious social programs lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty during his first two mandates, from 2003 to 2010.

Returned to power, Lula brought back the Bolsa Familia. But Fernandes was disappointed more was not done.

"I thought he'd go further, but in the end I don't really feel that things have gotten better," she said.

Another Brazilian receiving Bolsa Familia payments, Alia Martins, 36, still backed Lula, whose own rise from poverty through metalworking jobs and trade unionism gave him appeal to the country's poorer classes.

"We know his history, he also knew hunger, and he has really made a difference," said Martins, mother of three children and pregnant with a fourth.

Nevertheless, she was lining up for a charity food basket in a Rio neighborhood nestled under a favela.

- Problem 'far' from solved -

According to the UN State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, the number of Brazilians suffering moderate to severe food insecurity fell from 70.3 million to 39.7 million between the 2020-2022 period to the latest, covering 2021-2023.

The number of those with severe food insecurity dropped 85 percent last year compared to 2022, according to UN figures Lula's government says it has obtained. That was a reduction from 17.2 million people to 2.5 million.

"We are seeing a sharp drop, but that doesn't mean that the problem of hunger in Brazil is solved, far from it," said Rodrigo Afonso, head of the Acao da Cidadania (Citizen Action) charity distributing food baskets.

It was at Acao da Cidadania's headquarters that Lula in July unveiled his alliance against hunger and poverty initiative.

At that event, tears filled his eyes as he urged action against hunger, which he called "the most degrading of human deprivations, an attack on life, an assault on freedom."

The alliance seeks to rally countries and international bodies to finance the fight against hunger, and to copy successful initiatives.

For Marcelo Neri, head of the social studies unit of Brazil's Getulio Vargas Foundation think tank, the Bolsa Familia could be one such example. Another is a Brazilian program providing free school meals.

But Brazil is struggling with those programs' costs.

Unlike his first two mandates, when a resource boom filled state coffers, Lula is today confronted with budget pressures that he has to juggle against his ambition to lead the fight against hunger.

G.Gopalakrishnan--DT