Health Policies Within the Poverty Agendas of the Lula Da Silva and Rousseff Administrations: The Influence of the World Bank.

Abstract

The anti-poverty agenda has been at the heart of the World Bank's discourse in recent decades. Social policies started to be identified as strategic for combating poverty and promoting development in poor countries. We analyzed the health policy recommendations made by the World Bank to Brazil in the Lula da Silva and Rousseff administrations from 2003 to 2014. Document analysis was used to explore the partnership contracts between the World Bank and Brazil, projects financed by the World Bank in Brazil, and the document "20 Years of Construction of the Health System in Brazil: An Analysis of the Unified Health System." Content analysis of documents show that there was a predominance of projects focusing on reducing poverty, while social policies occupied a secondary place in the agenda. The World Bank approached states and municipalities expanding the spread of its state reform agenda, in addition to reinterpreting the structural framework of the Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS). We conclude that the Bank acted to limit the original principles of the SUS in favor of hegemonic interests of the current phase of capitalist accumulation.