Bolsa Família, Brazil’s admired anti-poverty programme, is flailing

LAST YEAR Natália Ribeiro sent her five-year-old daughter to live with relatives because she could not afford to feed her. She had tried to sign up for Bolsa Família (Family Fund), a conditional cash-transfer programme that supports millions of poor Brazilians. That includes 80% of families in Belágua, a town of 7,000 people in Maranhão, the poorest state. Ms Ribeiro should have been a shoo-in. She has no income. Her three children get regular health check-ups and will go to school, she promises. That is a precondition for receiving the monthly benefits, which start at 89 reais ($21). She has been waiting since May. “I want a better life for my little ones,” says the 24-year-old, who has long eyelashes like the baby in her lap and the toddler playing with a piece of wood on the floor.

In June last year Brazil’s populist government, which had taken office five months before, slowed the acceptance of new beneficiaries and started cancelling payments to existing ones. The number of families admitted to Bolsa Família has dropped from 275,000 a month to fewer than 2,500. The number receiving benefits has fallen by 1m. The government says that 700,000 are on the waiting list, which may be an underestimate.