Lula to invest 3,6 US billion on Brazil slums

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Friday announced a R$ 6.86 billion (about $3.6 billion) investment to bring running water, roads, improved housing, sewage and other services to the so-called favelas, or metropolitan slum areas in 13 provinces of his country.

It is the first time a project aimed at the “biggest degradation focuses” becomes part of the Brazilian political culture. The federal government would contribute 5.9 billion reals local governments and municipalities would contribute.

Last January, the second government of President Lula announced the Program for the Acceleration of Growth. “This phase of the PAC has three aspects: environmental, of public health, with the decrease of illnesses, and of income, improving the incomes of the population of those cities,” explained the President’s Chief of Cabinet, Dilma Rousseff.

Last month, the state security chief of Rio de Janeiro said that the shantytowns were “at the mercy of a parallel state, where criminals dictate their will,” pledging to conduct more police raids to counter this trend. In Rio de Janeiro alone, 20% of the city, or 1.5 million inhabitants, are estimated to live in favelas.

A favela is the Brazilian equivalent of a shanty town. The majority have electricity, but in most cases it is illegally tapped from the public grid. Favelas are constructed from a variety of materials, ranging from bricks to garbage. Many favelas are very close and very cramped. They are plagued by sewage, crime and hygiene problems. Although many of the most infamous are located in Rio de Janeiro, there are favelas in almost every large or even mid-sized Brazilian town.

It is generally agreed upon that the first favela was created in November 1897 when 20,000 veteran soldiers were brought to Rio de Janeiro and left with no place to live. Some of the older favelas were originally started as quilombos (independent settlements of fugitive African slaves) among the hilly terrain of the area surrounding Rio, which later grew as slaves were liberated in 1888 with no place to live.

The favela were formed prior to the dense occupation of cities and the domination of real estate interests, for this reasons they are generally located in beautiful areas.

Favelas are associated with immense poverty. Brazil’s favelas can be seen as the result of the unequal distribution of wealth in the country. Brazil is one of the most economically unequal countries in the world with the top 10 percent of its population earning 50 percent of the national income and about 34 percent of all people living below the poverty line.