Organizations from Brazilian civil society, led by iCS grantees, participate in a meeting with the BNDES to guarantee public policy for forest peoples in remote locations
In a meeting with Tereza Campello, a director of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), organizations from Brazilian civil society submitted the document “Road Map,” with the outline of an integrated public policy that allows access to drinking water, energy and internet by 2025 to the almost 1 million excluded Amazonians, forest peoples from around 6,000 remote locations.
The Map began to be designed, in Belém, in May this year, at the “II Meeting of Energy & Communities.” This is a group formed by civil society organizations such as CONAQ (State Coordination of Black, Rural and Quilombola Communities), COIAB (Coordination of the Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon and CNS (National Council of Rubber Tappers), and which was supported by the Institute for Climate and Society (iCS). Representatives from different ministries attended the meeting (Mines and Energy, Agrarian Development and Family Farming, Environment and Climate Change, Racial Integration and Social Development and Combating Hunger), state governments, universities, socioenvironmental organizations, and more than 200 aligned leaders. A Working Group was created to organize the “Road Map.”
According to Caetano Scannavino, coordinator of the Health and Happiness Project, these investments pay for themselves with the reduction in healthcare costs (with telemedicine and the on-site conservation of vaccines), education (EAD, EJA, and night courses), security and protection of environmental defenders, notification of emergencies, viability of different services (banks, etc.), agroforestry production and food security (irrigation, nurseries for restoration, and storage, etc.) and socio-bioeconomy. Water, energy and internet are essential in order to add value to the products of the forest and to improve the income of the local residents.
Riverside dwellers in the Amazon | Credit: Antonio Cruz / Agência Brasil. Creative Commons License: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Workshop_jornalistas_desmatamento_na_Amazonia_7846.jpg
