FIGHT AGAINST HUNGER AS A PUBLIC POLICY: THE PROGRAMS TO PROVIDE MEALS TO THE POPULATION IN SITUATIONS OF SOCIAL VULNERABILITY IN BRAZIL

Abstract

Social public policies are fundamental to enable access to certain rights and needs for marginalized citizens, without which this would not be possible. In Brazil, social policies were instituted as consequences of class struggles, a path to the conquest of rights and the reduction of inequalities. As the effectiveness and maintenance of public policies are dependent on the release of public resources, one of the problems is their fragmentation and discontinuity due to changes in government over the years. Faced with the scenario of food and nutritional insecurity experienced by the Brazilian population and aware of the State's responsibility to respect, protect and promote people's right to have access to adequate and healthy food, the government has created several strategies to guarantee this right established by the Federal Constitution of Brazil. Among the strategies, programs to provide healthy and nutritious food to socially vulnerable people stand out. Narrowing it down a little further, there is the Popular Restaurant program, which was designed with the objective of providing complete and healthy meals at affordable prices for the low-income population. In this context, this research aimed to identify whether the Federal Government and the State Governments have programs for access to free or subsidized food in all Brazilian states. For this, the research was developed with a quantitative and exploratory approach, and the data collection was done through the websites of the Federal and State governments to identify the policies/programs of access to free or subsidized food, analyzing the following elements: if there are programs, what is the number of units,  the amounts charged for lunch and the date of implementation of the program. It was concluded that, despite the difficulty of finding information regarding the programs in some states, in quantitative terms, there is a relevant number of establishments, but there is a need for a better geographical distribution of them so that access to free or low-cost food is achieved by the population of the various Brazilian regions and not just some.