Government resumes social participation, and challenges diversity – 10/12/2023 – Power

The Lula government (PT) created a network of social participation and diversity advisors with representatives from different ministries in an attempt to coordinate actions and leverage these themes.

After nine months of management, the new structure, which is under the coordination of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, is still being formatted and the two issues are treated with different weights — with a focus on dialogue with civil society, the network does not operate, for example, in the government’s own diversity policies.

The resumption of spaces for social participation was one of Lula’s flags in his campaign, in contrast to the administration of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), who sought to undermine or empty the majority of councils and bodies of this type existing in the government. One example is Consea (National Council for Food and Nutritional Security), which was reactivated in February.

In addition to working on restructuring the bodies of the ministries themselves, the advisory network had one of its main initiatives in preparing the Amazon Dialogues so far, organizing plenaries and debates with a plurality of voices on the region’s issues, in parallel with the Amazon Summit – which brought together heads of state from the region in August.

Fabrício Araújo Prado, head of consultancy at Itamaraty and a central figure in the organization along with other consultancies, highlights the dialogue at the same event between different segments that do not meet frequently, including representatives of NGOs and movements, the academic area, companies, bodies public and parliamentary.

“It was an experience that recovers a tradition in Brazil, such as the 1992 Rio Conference, considered a landmark of social participation in international politics”, he says.

As provided for in the Lula government’s structuring decrees, almost all ministries have a participation and diversity consultancy in their structure.

Defense and the GSI (Institutional Security Office) are among the few departments not included in the network, as shown in the Sheetwhich is interpreted as shielding the military.

In addition to them, there is only the CGU (Comptroller General of the Union), which stated that it is participating in the network’s activities, and the Secretariat for Institutional Relations of the Presidency, which said that it dialogues with the topic through the “Conselhão” — which reopened in May.

Most ministries already have an advisor in charge of the topic. However, there are still at least three departments that, until September, continued without formally appointing representatives to their respective offices.

Transportes said that it had forwarded the name of the chosen person to the Civil House for consideration and was awaiting approval. The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples did not respond. Development and Social Assistance also did not respond, but according to the General Secretariat, a civil servant from the department has been following the meetings.

Mariana Braga, head of Culture consultancy, mentions the implementation of affirmative actions following the regulation of the Paulo Gustavo Law as one of the highlights. She also highlights the diversity in the composition of the team of advisors and sees the importance of the network because demands are not directed to just one area.

“It’s a majority of people coming from the periphery, from social movements, black people, trans people. This in itself brings new perspectives to the construction of public policy within the aspects of diversity”, he states.

Leading the issue in the current administration, the deputy executive secretary of the General Secretariat, Tânia Maria de Oliveira, states that one of the group’s first tasks was to work on mapping the situation of the councils in order to restructure them. She says that the advisors maintain contact with movements, taking demands to the ministries and then returning to the groups.

The focus of the activities has been social participation, with the justification that diversity is already included in the discussion, being a principle of the Lula government’s public policies.

“We have specific portfolios for policies, such as the ministries of Racial Equality, Women, Indigenous Peoples and the National Youth Secretariat, which works within the structure of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic. So diversity is covered throughout the government”, says Oliveira.

Daniela Salomão, head of Management and Innovation consultancy, cites, for example, the effort to make policies more inclusive for rural women.

“The Marcha das Margaridas is a social movement and it is very clear that it is also diversity, because it is a women’s movement. So social participation is not dissociated from what is called diversity.”

For Artur Sinimbu, who is head of the participation and diversity advisory department at the Ministry of Racial Equality, continuing to advance with the transversality of public policies, considering gender and race aspects, for example, is a challenge.

“Diversity policies vary more intensely from one policy context to another. What is done effectively in terms of diversity in one ministry may be radically innocuous in another ministry, because racism, machismo, are very sophisticated forms of hierarchization .”

Despite the intersections between the two themes, there are initiatives related to diversity implemented in the government that end up being implemented without the same structured network interconnecting all departments, as occurs with the participation policy.

An example of the difference in weight is the creation by decree of a Social Participation System, bringing together advisories and having the General Secretariat as its central body. There is no equivalent, however, to coordinate diversity actions.

In March, the government created a working group made up of ten ministries to develop a national affirmative action program, aimed at the black and indigenous population, people with disabilities and women.

Another group created in July and which also has ten portfolios deals with harassment in public administration.

On another front, seeking to achieve greater racial diversity in decision-making bodies in the public service, the government issued a decree that determines that 30% of positions of trust in Executive bodies be occupied by black people by the end of 2025.

The action was under the umbrella of the Ministries of Racial Equality and Management and Innovation in Public Services, one of the next steps will be to define how the occupation of these positions by Esplanada will be controlled and monitored.