After the slavery abolition in 1888 and throughout the 20th century, Africa figured relatively low in Brazil’s foreign policy agenda, which have mostly focused in the relations with the global powers such as the United States and European countries. This configuration started to change significantly in the early 2000s, when the improved macroeconomic situation of Brazil coincided with Africa’s economic revival. The turning point was, with no doubt, under former President Lula’s mandate (2003-2010).
Revoking historical ties and cultural similarities, Lula’s discourse was frequently based in frames such as: “paying back the solidarity debt with the African continent, due to centuries of slavery relied on the sweat and blood of millions of Africans” and the necessity to stop focusing in developed powers, in order to “unite the voices of the global south” (Veja, 2012).
Since Lula came into power, in 2003, the number of Brazilian embassies in Africa has doubled, jumping from 18 to 37, while African embassies in Brasilia have increased from 16 to 34. Furthermore, Lula made in total 28 presidential visits to the African continent, covering 21 countries and reaching record levels (Alves, 2013).
Although most of the Brazilian cooperation goes to Central and South America due to peacekeeping operations, in technical cooperation the focus in the African continent is visible, accounting for 57% of the total (ABC, 2011):
Source: ABC, 2011
As reported by the latest official information in 2011, there were technical cooperation projects either in the design or implementation phases in 38 out of 54 African countries (ABC, 2011). Regarding the top beneficiaries of the Brazilian cooperation in Africa, Portuguese-speaking African countri...
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...urplus with most of the African countries, with the exception of Nigeria, explained by the heavy oil imports (Alves, 2013).
At the same time, investment funds seek to raise funds to enable increased Brazilian investment in Africa. In this sense, the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV Projects) aims to raise funds of approximately $ 1 billion for the development of agricultural projects. DWS Investments, manager owned by the German Deutsche Bank, coordinate the fund. Moreover, in June 2012, BTG Pactual, the largest investment bank in Brazil, also announced plans to raise $ 1 billion and create a ’world’ investment fund to Africa, for areas such as infrastructure, energy and agriculture.
It is clear that economic ties between Brazil and Africa were also strengthened by the several presidential visits to the continent, resulting in creating business opportunities.
The National Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) continues to invest heavily in the market, providing almost R$274 billion for the period of 2010 – 2013 (up 38% from 2005 – 2008). Nevertheless, the country must continue to seek new ways to attract private capital, by revisiting institutional and regulatory frameworks, in order to have the necessary investment levels that will sustain the growing economy and allow the delivery of successful projects.
President Sarney response included a restructuring of the political and economic landscape beginning a series of plans that focused on controlling the domestic market but this meant reducing access to foreign markets and controlling their exchange rate. As the millenium began to come to a close, Brazil started engaging in free and preferential trade agreements organized by MERCOSUR (common market of the south). This is when globalisation began for Brazil.
Slavery as it existed in colonial Brazil contained interesting points of comparison and contrast with the slave system existing in British North America. The slaves in both areas had been left with very little opportunity in which he could develop as a person. The degree to which the individual rights of the slave were either protected or suppressed provides a clearer insight to the differences between North American and Brazilian slavery. The laws also differed greatly between the two areas and have been placed into three categories: term of servitude, police and disciplinary powers, and property and other civil rights.
We must begin with Brazil’s history in order to understand the problem and how it came to exist. During the year 1500, Brazil was “discovered” by the Portuguese. The Portuguese saw the indigenous people as “savages” because they did not look or dress like Europeans. Hence, the idea that indigenous people are “savages” help influence the Portuguese that indigenous people need to be controlled and become more civilized. During the 16th century the Portuguese used “black” slaves to work in plantations to increase trading in Europe. After the year 1850 slave trade was abolished, but the Portuguese continued to bring slaves from Africa, illegally. Edward Eric Telles states, “Roughly three hundred years later, when the slave trade ended in 1850, 3.6 million African Americans had been brought to Brazil as slaves, ...
Evidence of African roots are identifiable throughout Brazil. Brazil is the second most populated country of Blacks. Many different tones from mulatto to caboclo to black are present with culture that has flourished since African slaves first arrived to the country. The slaves that came to South America, brought their religion, gods, and music along with them, giving Brazil a cultural identity and a place among other nations. The profits of African slavery have allowed Brazil to gain capital and build a government based mainly on sugar exports. Although Brazil was the first to claim themselves free of racism, throughout history they often put slaves in even worse conditions than the US. Easy accessibility to import African slaves, meant that
Priscilla. “The World Economy and Africa.” JSpivey – Home – Wikispaces. 2010. 29 January 2010. .
On July 8, 2003, George W. Bush delivered a speech at Goree Island, Senegal in an attempt to acknowledge and atone for America’s past of slavery. This speech served as a confession of America’s past “sins”, and a movement towards restitution for these “sins” through the proposition of “economic partnership and political partnerships” (Medhurst 258), and a promise of American investment to fight AIDS in Africa.
By the late nineteenth century, France terminated the slave trade in French Cameroon and abolished slavery in the French colony of Martinique. Although the French removed the physical chains on people of African descent living in French territories, the remnant of slavery and colonialism continues to manifest itself through the mental enslavement and exploitation of people of continental Africa and the African Diaspora. In Jean-Marie Téno’s unorthodox documentary about the history of Cameroon, Africa, I Will Fleece You, and Euzhan Palcy’s film set on the island of Martinique, Sugar Cane Alley, they shed light on the transferable nature of slavery and colonialism in postcolonial societies. Accordingly, Téno’s, Africa, I Will Fleece You, and Palcy’s, Sugar Cane Alley, manipulate
Filh, Alfredo Saad. "Neoliberalism, Democracy, and Development Policy in Brazil." DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIETY June 2010: 1-28.
Slavery in Brazil began long before the first Portuguese settlement was established in 1532. Because certain forms of slavery had existed for centuries on the continent of Africa, Brazilian historians used to say that us blacks imported from across the Atlantic, were ready to accept their new status as ''Slaves''. Slave labor was the driving force behind the growth of the sugar economy in Brazil. Gold and diamond deposits were discovered in Brazil in about 1690, which sparked an increase in the importation of African slaves to power this new market. According to many depressed characteristics, Brazil is identified as a developing country, nevertheless is occupies a special place on the list of these countries. Having a huge potential and a high level of economic development, Brazil has found a place on the list of the highest slavery rates. With that being said then you could already ready conclude that there where many slaves imported to the country, Brazil. Brazil had the largest slave population in the world, substantially larger than the United States. The Portuguese who settled Brazil needed labor to work the large estates and mines in their new Brazilian colony. They turned to slavery which became central to the colonial economy. It was particularly important in the mining and sugar cane sectors. Slavery was also the mainstay in the Caribbean islands with economies centered on sugar. Estimates suggest that about 35 percent of captured Africans involved in the Atlantic slave trade were transported to Brazil. Estimates suggest that more than 3 million Africans reached Brazil, although precise numbers do not exist. Brazil had begun to turn to slavery in the 15th century as explorers began moving along the coast of Africa.
Due to its high population rate (large labour pool), its vast natural resources and its geographical position in the centre of South America, it bears enormous growth potential in the near future. Aligned with increasing currency stability, international companies have heavily invested in Brazil over the past decade. According to CIA World Factbook, Brazil had the 11th largest PPP in 2004 worldwide and today has a well established middle income economy with wide variations in levels of development. Thus, today Brazil is South America's leading economic power and a regional leader. 2.
In 1822, Brazil became a nation independent from Portugal. By far the largest and most populous country in South America, Brazil has overcome more than half a century of military government to pursue industrial and agricultural growth and development. With an abundance of natural resources and a large labor pool, Brazil became Latin America's leading economic power by the 1970’s.
In the current economic times the development and growth of any economy has come to a near stop or at least to a drastic slow down. The face of the global economic environment has changed and many new countries are starting to change the way their country and the rest of the world does business. One such nation is Brazil, who has turned around their own economic troubles and is becoming one of the fastest growing economies in the world (World Factbook). Brazil has started developing its economy and using the opportunity to achieve a level of respect in the world.
The BRICS “has come to symbolize the growing power of the world’s largest emerging e...
“A formal public commitment to legal racial equality, for example, had been the price of mass support for Latin American’s independence movements. In the generation following independence, the various mixed-race classifications typical of the caste system were optimistically banished from census forms and parish record keeping.” This was meant to make all slaves citizens, equal to all other citizens. Slavery receded in Latin America, except in non-republican Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. However, Brazil’s pursuit of independence was the least violent and provoked the least amount of change. The case of Brazil suggests that retention of colonial institutions such as monarchies lent to stability. “Brazil had retained a European dynasty; a nobility of dukes, counts, and barons sporting coats of arms; a tight relationship between church and state; and a full commitment to the institution of chattel slavery, in which some people worked others to death.”