| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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The characteristics of the social participation in Brazilian Social Assistance policies justify this initiative as innovative. Firstly, the deliberative nature, the scale and the formal responsibilities of those spaces are revolutionary. The number of 68,615 active Social Assistance counselors in Brazil (regulars and substitutes), according to the current database of the SUAS, is impressive. Besides quantity, the diversity of actors representing civil society in those councils welcomes representatives of Social Assistance organizations, workers and users.
Other key factors are the leadership of CNAS over the National Conferences and the regularity under which they occur. The call issued by CNAS induces municipal, district and state councils to mobilize, prepare and call their respective conferences, starting a massive nation-wide democratic process. The 10th and most recent edition of the National Conference occurred in 2015, engaging 1,280 delegates (representatives) and 335 guests only on its national stage. Preceding that, the same year state conferences had been organized in all 26 States and the Federal District, just after 97% of Brazilian municipalities (5,393 cities) had done the same. Considering the whole process and all the federative levels, it means that just in 2015 a total of 5,411 Social Assistance conferences have been realized.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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CNAS exerts its protagonism over the social control strategy through norms and guidelines aimed at the effective functioning of local councils. Brazil currently has 36 national councilors, 704 state councilors in 26 states and Federal District, and 67,875 municipal councilors, according to SUAS 2015 Census. The Census is a monitoring process of the Social Assistance policy that since 2007 electronically collects data from all state and municipal managers and councils.
The special report for Social Assistance in the survey of basic municipal information from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) evidenced that in 2013 there was a share of 99% of municipalities with Social Assistance councils (over a total of 5,570 municipalities). Nowadays this number equals 100% of municipalities, according to SUAS 2016 Census. The Social Assistance policy manager is responsible for vesting the councilors in their positions, in the respective federative level. Governmental councilors are appointed by the managers and the civil society ones are elected in specific forums. Councils approve their own internal regiments and, inspired by CNAS, usually alternate governmental and civil society representatives as their presidents.
Regarding the conferential process, CNAS is the body in charge of its calling and coordination, acting together with state, district and municipal councils. In order to manage the conferences, an Organizing Commission is assembled, along with a Report Team, responsible for developing the main theme of the conference and of its thematic axis, producing summaries, support texts and debate instruments, and setting the rules for defining the proposals from state, district and municipal conferences that will make their way to the national arena, to be vocalized and discussed by elected delegates.
In 2017 the 11th National Conference is happening. Documents referring to all the concluded or undergoing conferences can be found at: http://www.mds.gov.br/cnas/conferencias-nacionais
Population involved in the social participation practices, including the conferences, includes potentially all the managers, workers and users of the Brazilian Social Assistance public policy.
Some data help to clarify the size of this policy. In December, 2016, Brazil had 4,399,186 beneficiaries of BPC (http://aplicacoes.mds.gov.br/sagi/miv/miv.php) and 13,560,232 families beneficiaries of Family Grant Program (http://aplicacoes.mds.gov.br/sagi/cecad/tabulador_tabcad_brasil.php?p_forma=1 HYPERLINK "http://aplicacoes.mds.gov.br/sagi/cecad/tabulador_tabcad_brasil.php?p_forma=1&p_frequencia=1"& HYPERLINK "http://aplicacoes.mds.gov.br/sagi/cecad/tabulador_tabcad_brasil.php?p_forma=1&p_frequencia=1"p_frequencia=1#tabela_link) – direct income transfer program with conditionalities for families in poverty (up to R$170 monthly income per capita) and extreme poverty (up to R$85 monthly income per capita). Prioritary targets of the Social Assistance services are these beneficiaries of cash transfers programs, but also other families living under conditions of social risk and vulnerability. In order to support them, there currently are roughly 600 thousands professionals in the SUAS, working on 16,911 facilities from the public Social Assistance network (SUAS 2017 Census) and 18,955 private ones (National Database for Social Assistance Organizations – CNEAS, 2017).
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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The managers of Social Assistance policy are responsible for providing resources for the regular maintenance of councils. Also, they are committed to deliver all the relevant information in order to allow effective social control, as well as the necessary infrastructure. Besides that, there is a federal financial support specifically directed to the enhancement of management quality in SUAS. To allow that, the capacities of Social Assistance policies are quantified by the SUAS Development Index, an instrument of measurement of quality of decentralized management of services, programs, projects, assistance benefits, and intersectoral articulation. At least 3% of that federal financial support must be invested, by state and municipalities, in technical and operational support to the council, forbidden any use of these resources to payment of personnel or any kind of salary bonus to public servants.
Knowledge and guiding are others fundamental resources to the functioning of councils and conferences. Turnover rate of councilors is expressive, although the complexity of this policy and the responsibilities of councils demand permanent action from them. The coordination of the Commission for the Monitoring of Councils, a branch of CNAS, and other departments from the federal manager ministry collaborate to produce information materials and learning opportunities to be offered presentially or remotely. It is not enough to remark that the participation in conferential processes is also a broad opportunity of learning and updating for the councilors.
Regarding specifically the resources mobilized to the national conferences, the year before the start of these participatory process the CNAS organizes the planning and allocation of budgetary resources drawn from a specific budgetary source (Action 8249 – Maintenance of Social Assistance Councils). This share of the federal budget is sufficient to cover all the expenses related to the National Conference of Social Assistance, including the meetings of the Organizing Commission and Report Team and travel of national councilors to take part in state, district and municipal conferences. Currently, for the 11th National Conference there is a budgetary provision of R$ 4.5 million (3.5 million for contracting a specialized events firm and 1 million to other expenses). Likewise, CNAS advices state and district councils to organize budgetary planning and provision to cover their expenses, and asks them to similarly guide their municipalities in doing the same, setting the needed conditions for the conferences to be hold in all federative levels.
Once a National Conference is called, usually at the beginning of every two years, CNAS opens a permanent channel of communication with states and municipalities in order to guide them step-by-step through the processes of organizing their own conferences. Guiding Resolutions, bulletins and support texts are issued and sent to local councils, while fully available at CNAS website to the general public. The national stage of the conference concludes all the process, commonly scheduled to the month of December of that year. After all the conferential process, CNAS defines its bi-annual strategic planning considering the approved proposals from the National Conference.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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The activities of public engagement on the social control of Social Assistance policies, including councils and conferences, are performed by many and diverse actors. Conferential processes are directly joined by Social Assistance councils which, on their turn, are 50% composed by civil society representatives, comprising assistance organizations, workers and users of SUAS.
Other social policies areas, partners in management and control of SUAS, also take part in the critical and propositive debate of the conferences. Frequently, National Conferences of Social Assistance are joined by managers and activists from the fields of health, education and defense and promotion of human rights, including children and adolescents, people with disabilities and elderly, as well as representatives from the Legislature and Judiciary Branches.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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The effectiveness of the social participation in the Social Assistance policies, through councils and conferences, can be evidenced by its ability to influence the decisions in the Executive and Legislature Branch, and in civil society.
The emblematic case of influence from the social control over the Legislature was the enacting of the Law n. 12.435/2011, also called the "SUAS Law", that revised the Organic Law of Social Assistance (LOAS). Thus, SUAS directives were incorporated into the LOAS, formally recognizing rules such as competences and duties for each one of the federative levels on management and financing; structure of the regular transfers between their funds; levels and standards of basic social protection (PSB) and special social protection (PSE), among others. Until then, these guidelines, based upon the directives approved by National Conferences, had been constructed through low-level norms, like governmental decrees, CNAS and Triple Intermanagers Commission (CIT) resolutions, and normative instructions from the ministry. This was a truly collective construction from government and civil society, eventually recognized by the Legislature.
Influence over Executive Branch is no smaller, and has been sufficiently described. However, it is important to remark the case of the Resolution n. 109/2009, from CNAS. This norm establishes the National Typology of Social Assistance Services, an instrument that qualifies the services that face poverty, hunger and social vulnerability in SUAS. The Typology is the reference for nationwide standardization of basic and special protection services, as it defines their essential contents, target beneficiaries, purpose and expected results.
Finally, influence from the councils and conferences over civil society can be evaluated by the shown capacity to manage and enhance the processes of participatory democracy. By offering open spaces of political participation and critic evaluation of Social Assistance services, the social control mechanisms help to build a more pacific and inclusive society. The rising of new forums and its articulations – also between them and the councils – is a result of this political maturity. Since the 7th National Conference, whose theme was "Social Participation and Control in the Unified Social Assistance System", there was increasing participation and mobilization of the users, resulting in the creation of many state and municipal forums of users of social assistance services. Nowadays, the National Forum of Workers of SUAS (FNTSUAS) and the National Forum of Users of SUAS (FNUSUAS) are an important part of that political scenario.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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The main challenges involve assuring parity (50% for government and civil society) and proportionality (equal number of representatives from private organizations, workers and users) in the composition of local councils, as well as providing information and knowledge needed for them to exert their functions. One of the factors that strengthen these challenges is the turnover of actors on that field.
This turnover is evidenced, regarding governmental actors, by their replacement in the councils right after each state or municipal election. As these elections happen alternately each two years (four-year mandate each), it is difficult to meet the same combination of state and municipal managers in the conferences twice in a row (as conferences are bi-annual). On civil society, turnover can also be seen in the segment of workers, considering the weakening of professional relationships, despite all the efforts to enhance workforce management in SUAS. In the segment of organizations, the challenge reflects their major concentration in the South and Southeast Regions in Brazil, and their low adherence to SUAS network in the other regions. Finally, engagement of users of Social Assistance services is a permanent challenge, that has been addressed in many conferences and remains an issue for a effective social control strategy.
Regarding the need of information and knowledge, CNAS has been suggesting to local governments the organization of previous events to mobilize and prepare civil society for their conferences. The program of national stage of the conferences tries to balance information sharing, assessing and proposing activities. So, the event includes panels, that help to put the theme in perspective; thematic workshops, that allow a deeper understanding of Social Assistance actions; and work groups, to discuss and evaluate proposals received from state conferences, eventually submitted to the approval of a final plenary composed of delegates from all the country.
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