Lessons From Recife:

Favela Residents Move up from Mud, into Policy Arena

By Beth H. Cohen

Brazil's twentieth-century urban history is intertwined with that of its squatter settlements, known in Portuguese as favelas. Nowhere is this more true than in Recife - the coastal capital of Pernambuco state, and a metropolis with a history of profound social and economic challenges.

With 1.3 million residents in Recife's boundaries and 3 million in its metropolitan region, Greater Recife is believed to have the highest proportion and third-highest number of favela residents in Brazil, trailing only São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. While the number of favelas is disputed, some studies show that as many as 800,000 (or 62 percent) of the city's 1.3 million residents live in favelas.

To attend this population, the city has devised an innovative program to legalize and urbanize favelas by designating them as "Special Zones of Social Interest." The program evolved from the struggles of squatter residents and has captured international attention for its efforts to promote democracy at the local level. At the recent United Nations Conference on Human Settlements in Istanbul, Turkey, Recife's program was presented as one of Brazil's best practices of urban policy.

While many Brazilian cities share similar patterns of growth and exclusion, Recife's initiatives to integrate favela populations into its urban structure have transformed protesters into policy makers, an important step toward alleviating "the favela problem" faced by hundreds of Brazilian communities.

Forging the Favela Movement

Favelas emerged in Brazil as a popular means of "self-help" housing in the 1950s, when millions of peasants moved from the agrarian campo (countryside) to the increasingly modern and industrialized cities in search of new jobs and new lives. Successive droughts in the Northeastern sertão (backlands) have kept a steady stream of migrants fleeing to Recife, as well as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

Many favela residents settled illegally on vacant urban land and planned to use these makeshift homes only long enough to gain a foothold in the city. But Brazil's urban areas quickly became cidades inchadas (swollen cities). Unable to absorb the housing and social needs of the new urban masses, these neighborhoods of wooden and tin shacks persisted and grew.

While some favela residents have struggled successfully to build more stable homes and obtain basic urban services, many favela residents continue to live in precarious conditions. It is this image of favelas - pockets of slums perched on the slopes of Rio's hills, and pushed to the edges of Sao Paulo's high-rises and the shadows of Recife's oceanside condos - which defines and dominates Brazil's urban landscape today.

In the late 1970s, favela residents backed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and a progressive faction of the Catholic Church organized to protest urban injustices. The Brazilian state's increasing openness to citizens groups after the abertura (political opening) in 1979 sparked the emergence of these urban social movements, which became catalysts of physical changes in their streets and political changes in their cities.

Neighborhood councils and citywide favela associations that pressed for land rights and urban services played a central role in these struggles.

The initial goal for many of these groups was to "get out of the mud," the physical state in which favelados (favela residents) found their neighborhoods' unpaved roads after a rain. Soon these efforts grew into a broader political agenda, and communities that were once considered by local officials to be pockets of disease and hotbeds of rebellion instead became viewed as incubators of democracy.

Participatory Policy in Recife

The relationship between local governments and urban populations has grown in significance during the past two decades and is attracting increasing attention this year with municipal elections scheduled nationwide in October.

While democratic transitions have experienced some success on the national level, it is the cities - home to more than 60 percent of Brazil's 156 million people - where citizens are created. Thus, the role of municipal government has grown more crucial in shaping Brazil's evolving political culture.

Progressive administrations in cities like Porto Alegre, São Paulo and Recife are noted for developing innovative projects in which local authorities and neighborhood groups unite in parceria (partnership) to develop and implement participatory programs with political and practical objectives.

By developing novel approaches to gestão municipal (municipal administration) that aim to weave favela communities, physically, legally, and politically, into the urban fabric, these cities are trying to replicate democracy at the local level.

Favela movements have spawned numerous advocacy coalitions composed of representatives from the private and public sectors who act as a "favela lobby" in urban political struggles. In this environment, active favela residents are no longer seen as rebels, but rather as community advocates, grassroots lobbyists, and key actors in the struggle to implement effective and equitable urban policy.

Recife provides a strong example of the significance of participatory policy in a highly polarized and dynamic urban environment. After years of protest, negotiation and proposals, social movements and favela residents have evolved into key actors in the policy arena.

Recife's abundance of favelas is complicated by the fact that many squatters have settled next to the city's ocean, rivers and canals, adding health and environmental threats to the problem of indecent housing.

Only 31 percent of Recife's households have access to basic sewage treatment, and most studies agree that at least half of the city's population lives in informal settlements.

PREZEIS: Policy by the People

Recife's Plan for the Regularization and Urbanization of Special Zones of Social Interest (PREZEIS) became law in 1988, after more than a decade of popular organization and collective negotiation.

Between 1979 and 1981, as drought expelled thousands from their homes, and the easing of oppression permitted urban refugees to organize, Recife experienced 80 new land invasions involving 250,000 squatters. As government controls loosened and squatter settlements gained more freedom to make demands, squatter issues became highly politicized.

More than half of Recife's 151 neighborhood associations were founded between 1979 and 1985. Their intent was to modify the city's property laws. Initially, the movements were characterized by their oppositional stance toward the state. But in the 1980s, as local agencies became more flexible in dealing with the demands of neighborhood associations, leaders of social movements and neighborhood associations struggled to establish "alternative" arrangements with local authorities that would give them more say in policies that affected their communities and others like them.

The first major conquest for Recife's Popular Movement came in 1983, when Mayor Joaquim Francisco responded to squatters' demands by designating 27 of the city's most organized favelas as Special Zones of Social Interest. This designation meant that urban services such as sewers and paved streets would be forthcoming. It also protected the favela residents from being expelled by guaranteeing a package of zoning and titling measures that favored their residential use of the area.

While this initiative was slow to fulfill its commitments and failed to address the needs of Recife's other favelas, it was significant for its legal recognition of squatters' rights. F㏄ima Amazonas, Recife's assistant secretary of planning, states that despite its limitations in implementation, the 1983 law was significant because it reversed the previous policy of removing favelas, or ignoring them as if they didn't exist. Even more significantly, it created a specific zoning category for favelas, thereby integrating them into the formal urban structure for the first time.

Recife's community groups and NGOs recognized this conquest and organized to demand full rights for favelas. Activist lawyers and NGO representatives worked with favela leaders and city officials to craft legislation to enforce the 1983 law and to extend urban rights to the rest of Recife's favela population. Finally, in March of 1987, after almost two years of negotiation, Jarbas Vasconcelos, Recife's first democratically-elected mayor since the abertura, signed PREZEIS into law in front of 2,500 favela residents and supporters.

While other administrations had negotiated with squatter groups for strategic support, PREZEIS transformed favela policy from a political tool to a legal right. According to Salvador Soler, Recife's current secretary of social programs and one of the activist lawyers who helped elaborate the law, "PREZEIS was one of the few laws in Brazil that was created by the population and approved by the state, rather than the other way around."

Beginning in 1987, other squatter communities in Recife could be designated as Special Zones, a status which would entitle them to channels of personal security and political status that they had previously been denied.

Yet PREZEIS represents more than a new strategy for Recife's urban planners.

Official documents describe the program as an investment in the development of citizenship in the Special Zones, and claim that PREZEIS is not only an urban planning tool but also a channel that allows citizens to participate in decision making in their neighborhoods and cities.

To become part of the PREZEIS program, favela communities elect two representatives to meet weekly with officials to develop and carry out urbanization plans.

Favela leaders and officials from the city and NGOs also meet biweekly in the PREZEIS Forum, which was formed in 1988 to unify what was then perceived as a fragmented movement. Forum representatives act as liaisons between the city and the communities by educating residents about the urbanization and legalization processes.

PREZEIS has gradually added new communities, including eight in April of 1996. After almost 10 years, however, the PREZEIS experience shows that it is often difficult to foster citizen participation and awareness beyond each community's representatives. Although many of the representatives have been able to shape democratic practices under PREZEIS, their ability or willingness to translate these achievements to the community level varies greatly.

For example, in communities like João de Barros and Entra Apulso, representatives struggle to foster participation but face disinterested populations. Other representatives, such as those from Pina, covet the power that PREZEIS affords and attempt to use their roles as a springboard for their careers.

Measuring Success

It is difficult to judge whether such an acclaimed program that has grown out of years of struggle has effectively contributed to the democratization of Recife's urban space.

On a general level, PREZEIS has contributed to the leaders' role as watchdog/partners in municipal policy making. At the same time, however, it has produced a cadre of savvy leaders who attempt to benefit from their positions, sometimes at the expense of their communities.

PREZEIS embodies a democratic ethos that has spread gradually through Recife. In João de Barros, one of the city's oldest settlements, poor residents, unaccustomed to making official decisions about their neighborhoods, voted on the street names as part of the city's efforts to pave streets and install sewage systems. In Entra Apulso, the tiny favela that borders Recife's largest shopping mall, PREZEIS has ensured that the settlement will remain permanent, and that it will have a voice in decision making - despite its location in a part of town where favelas were bulldozed to make way for high-rise condominums. And in Pina, the large, politicized community where leaders have long battled for community control, PREZEIS pressure and community-wide elections have attempted to reverse years of monolithic leadership. In each of these communities, traditional ways of doing business, both inside and outside, run contrary to democracy. But programs like PREZEIS provide examples of democratic institution-building in progress as a model for change.

New Roles

It is clear that a single policy like PREZEIS will not overturn long-standing political and cultural structure, and the mere existence of policies like PREZEIS that claim to be participatory does not ensure that political culture is actually transformed.

But the creation of institutions that allow urban squatters to make important decisions about the physical and social organization of their communities can instill an active sense of citizenship in formerly marginalized populations.

For example, housing policy in Brazil today carries implications that stretch far beyond the structures where people reside. Laws such as PREZEIS that recognize every citizen's direito de moradia (housing rights) elevate squatter policy to the broader realm of socio-political transformation and play a significant part in the building of local democratic institutions.

As municipalities from São Paulo, Bahia and other states study the PREZEIS example and in many places adopt similar legislation involving parcerias between favelas and the state, participants and outside observers must develop methods and criteria for monitoring these so-called participatory policies to determine which parties ultimately benefit from them. In particular, they should attempt to understand the roles played by community leaders and elected officials.

This type of analysis calls for a new vocabulary. While polarized terms such as "co-opted" or "autonomous" might have been useful for studying leader(state relations in more oppositional times, the present context requires new language to discuss the types of partnership and negotiation that leaders engage in with the state on behalf of their communities.

It is clear that PREZEIS has affected a number of diverse and even contradictory patterns. As one NGO representative commented, "PREZEIS is schizophrenic - both democratic and clientelistic at the same time." But it is by most accounts a "work in progress" that is on the caminho certo (right path). And its diffusion at the U.N.Habitat II summit will draw positive glances to a city and region of Brazil that are traditionally associated with atraso (backwardness).

While vestiges of authoritarian political relationships continue to exist in Recife, both the participants and structure of PREZEIS have the potential to reward leaders and other key actors who participate in democratic institutions. And in the same fashion, they have the potential to reject those individuals who are stuck in the oppositional and undemocratic mud of the past.

Every neighborhood has its own history and culture and is affected differently by PREZEIS. The following are sketches of three Recife favelas studied by Beth Cohen as part of her research.

Entra Apulso

Entra Apulso's experience as a Special Zone of Social Interest (ZEIS) is emblematic of the new climate that exists between favelas and Recife's power structure. The favela flanks the city's biggest mall, Shopping Recife, but the two entities maintain a relationship that is mutually beneficial.
Residents recall proudly how in the 1960s, when Gov. Agamemnon Magalhães surveyed Recife by helicopter, ordering his department heads to clear the favelas, that the community defied the bulldozers. As quickly as city crews tore down their huts, residents would entrar a pulso (enter quickly) and rebuild their homes in the middle of the night, earning the name "Entra Apulso."
This resilience also prevailed when developers announced plans to build a mall adjacent to the favela. Entra Apulso's leaders clearly stated that they did not intend to leave. Instead, the two parties negotiated promises that ultimately aided both sides. The favela allowed local buses to traverse its main street, and the shopping center recognized the favela's right to remain intact. The good-neighbor relationship has benefited both parties in other ways. Stores in the mall hire favela residents as employees and contribute to Entra Apulso's community organizations.
The ZEIS designation has proved that the relationship between the city and the favela doesn't have to be acrimonious, nor must it revolve around favors in exchange for votes. Instead, the favela can be more strategic, and residents have become less ideological and more pragmatic in negotiating with the government.

Pina

With its own long history of struggle and resistance, Pina was one of the first favelas to gain attention from the authorities, and one of the first 27 favelas that forced the creation of PREZEIS.
Because of its activist past, the favela has paved streets, and many of its residents have titles to their land. Homes in Pina range from "pala-fitas" (huts on stilts) to two-story houses with wrought-iron gates, balconies and cars - signs that a favela "j� virou bairro" (has become an official neighborhood ).
Due to its militant tradition and the stability provided by land titles, Pina has developed a large political base and is a mandatory stop for politicians and candidates for state and local offices.
Pina is an example of a favela that, indeed, "got out of the mud," and its day care center and primary school are proof that once a favela does get out of the mud it can accomplish much more.

João de Barros

Named for the industrious little bird that builds its nests from mud, João de Barros is more rustic than the other two favelas. Even though it is one of Recife's oldest favelas, it is still grappling for the most basic of services, such as toilets.
Walk into João de Barros any day, and you'll see people hammering and sawing to fix their houses. Despite its urban location, João de Barros resembles a rustic enclave. Before it was designated a Special Zone, only one of its streets had a name. Residents routinely hung their laundry from palm trees in the median of one of Recife's main streets. Unlike Pina, João de Barros has little political clout. But it illustrates how PREZEIS intends to deliver services on the basis of need, rather than the size of the electoral base, or the connections that favela leaders have with local politicians.

Beth Cohen earned Master's degrees in Public Affairs and Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She spent six months in Brazil in 1994, where she worked with ARRUAR, a Recife NGO that works with housing and urban issues. She is employed as a change management analyst for Andersen Consulting.