Issues Faced by Brazil

 

Jehovah Nissi B. Botardo A1B What critical issues are raised from the examination of development problems and prospects facing Brazil? How do you compare the Philippines with this country in terms of the issues raised?

 At the beginning of the article, it has been clearly stated that there are two faces of development in Brazil. Although there is a world-competitive industry, there also exists the stagnant, protected sectors. Also, modern agriculture coexists with low productivity traditional practices. With this, we can say that Brazil is indeed a country achieving growth for they have made economic and social progress. Even if this is the case, they are still facing many challenges that hinder them from achieving true development. First and foremost, the country is facing the issue of poverty which is very common to every nation. In Brazil, there is a higher percentage of its population which are living in poverty. Some of its population has been living in extreme poverty with less than $2 a day which is worse than other low-income countries. Secondly, it has been stated that Brazil has extremely high economic inequality and social divisions that serves as a threat for the country to achieve further progress. Moreover. such problems in inequality appears to be in income as well as land and other assets. It was mentioned there is a high inequality when it comes to income distribution which results to extreme poverty. Other assets such as land has also a lso been unequally distributed which places the control to powerful people. Also, land reform acts have not been effective which places farmers in unfortunate situations. Also, Brazil faces struggles about indebtedness and infrastructure. With this, they have been working on how to improve the quality of their industries.  Another problem experienced by Brazil is the high and increasing taxes that could have greatly affected their formal sector employment growth. The increasing rates of their taxes has become a burden for their citizens and as many as half of their labor force works in the informal sector. As for the other social indicators, Brazil has been encountering problems with their life expectancy compared to other countries and the country suffers from high incidence of child labor. Sustainability of development has also been difficult for Brazil due to the destruction of their forests and other ecological assets due to social and economic activities. Lastly, Brazil has been facing issues with social inclusion. Most of the underprivileged people in this country are African and there exists the issue of racism or racial discrimination.

 

In comparison, Philippines and Brazil face related or similar critical issues which hinder them from achieving genuine development that could be measured not just based on economic growth but through effective reduction of poverty and other social and non- social indicators. As for the similarities, both countries do face the issue of poverty. A large part of the population of both countries are living in poverty. If the underprivileged people in Bra Brazil zil are living with less than $2 a day, underprivileged people in the Philippines on the other hand live with 60 pesos a day. Just like Brazil, inequalities of many kind are also present in the Philippines. There is a clear social division which are determined by the unequal income distribution. The problem of unequal land distribution has also been obvious in the Philippines as people face conflicts due to these resources. Many lands are actually actually owned by powerful people in the government government or people in private sectors instead of distributing it to our dear farmers who strives to have good quality of harvests in their agricultural production. In addition, Philippines is also indebted in foreign and domestic sources which results to a slow economic growth. Furthermore, Philippines has been facing problems with infrastructure as well. In fact, the current administration has been implementing projects and policies l ike “Build,  build, build” in order to improve the quality of the country’s infrastructure and industry.  As for the social indicators, the Philippines has also been encountering problems with life expectancy with the given rate of 69 years by 2016 which is lower than other Asian countries. In addition, child labor is also very present in the country as many children are forced to work due to poverty. Children especially in rural areas a reas are forced to help their families in their farms and they are even not privileged of going to school. Also, destruction of natural resources has also been bee n very present in the Philippines due to social and economic activities. In addition, there are social discriminations in the Philippines as well. Such differences in race, abilities and social status became avenues for people to discriminate or exclude other individuals. In conclusion, we can see that Philippines is not far from Brazil when it comes to the problems or issues faced based on the given comparisons. Also, our country has also experienced some economic growths for the past years but there was not much social development especially when it comes to the quality of life of most of the Filipinos. Just like Brazil, our country also hopes and strives for true and multidimensional development despite all the circumstances. For this to happen there must be continuous efforts in addressing the critical issues which includes poverty, unemployment, inequality, social discrimination, human development and environmental sustainability.