Northwest Brazil Integrated Development Program Analysis

In 1981, the World Bank agreed to provide financial aid to the Brazilian government in order to finance one of the most controversial projects ever assisted by the World Bank. The Northwest Brazil Integrated Development Program (Polonoroeste) aimed to promote sustainable development and settlement in an uninhabited Amazonian region in the State of Rondonia, Brazil (P006319, 2016). Despite the noble initial goal, and the good reasons that weighted towards the decision for assisting this project, the World Bank was accused by several activists’ groups as responsible for most of the negative outcomes of such initiative (Gueudeville, 2009; “International Monetary Fund and World Bank”, 2016). However, the World Bank didn’t act alone, but learned
While it was initially expected 5.000 families to be settled, more than 150.000 individuals migrated to the region (Schwartzman, 1986). These unsettled families started to clean new fragments of forest in order to find new and sustainable crop areas. In addition, the loggers complained by the lack of compensation provided by the Brazilian government in order to stop their activities in that area, and illegal logging started to play an important role as well (Mahar & Ducrot, 1998). After suffering with pressure of many activists’ groups, the project was halted in 1985 and concluded in 1990, with 9 years of existence (Schwartzman, 1986; P006319,
However, the IFIs can choose more carefully the projects they are willing to assist, or even more, require more detailed information on the management plan from the aided governments. Moreover, we are constantly learning about the environmental and social impacts of such endeavors, and thus we might ever be able to fully understand the outcomes before engaging in these projects. Therefore, I believe the IFIs can play an indispensable role in providing assistance for these development programs, and they can act as unbiased and responsible as the information available to them can be. Which means, we will still have flaws, but they can be extremely reduced if the IFIs conduct a stricter and more detailed analyses of the entire process surrounding these