To the international community, Brazil’s record on food security and social protection until relatively recently was exemplary, even enviable. The level of child stunting in Brazil fell from 25% in the mid-1980s to 15% in the mid-1990s and just 5% by the mid-2010s. This is a remarkable success story. Throughout the same 30-year period, the rate of child stunting in South Africa, a country that shares many characteristics with Brazil, remained constant at about 25%.

When President Lula da Silva came into office in 2003, he almost immediately launched Fome Zero or Zero Hunger, a coordinated set of government interventions that aimed to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty in Brazil. A number of food security and social protection programmes... Read More