Looking for change
Under Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s economy has stalled. She promises to reignite growth—but faces a strong challenger
THE Brazilian sertão is inhospitable at the best of times. Now in its third straight year of drought, the semi-arid scrubland wedged between the north-eastern coast and the Amazon rainforest to the west verges on desolate. Maria Raimunda da Silva, a 49-year-old sertaneja who lives with her mother and three sons near Serrinha, a town of 77,000 in the state of Bahia, recalls carrying water in a bucket from a muddy pond, half a mile down a dirt track. She would go early to scoop up the clean liquid near the surface, “before the animals came and stirred it up”.
A year ago Ms da Silva received a 16,000-litre water tank, courtesy of the federal government’s “Water for All” programme. Drainpipes channel any precious rain into the cistern. A municipal tanker lorry tops it up without charge. The Bolsa Família (family fund), a federal benefit received by 14m households nationwide, supplements her family’s precarious earnings from selling maize, cassava and beans by 302 reais ($125) a month.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "Looking for change"
From the October 18th 2014 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Briefing
America’s $61bn aid package buys Ukraine time
It must use it wisely
America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population
Which is a worry, because much of it is already shrinking
Homeowners face a $25trn bill from climate change
Property, the world’s biggest asset class, is also its most vulnerable