Brazil to Invest in Smart Public Security Program with Support From IDB

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a $150 million loan to fund Brazil’s Federative Program for Smart Public Security (PROSEG-Federativo), designed to help prevent and reduce crime throughout the country with a long-term credit line to BNDES (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social), Brazil’s Economic and Social Development Bank.

The operation will finance public safety improvement projects launched by eligible municipal and state governments. It will use an online platform with a menu of 80 possible different solutions tailor-made to the needs of each locality. Its recommendations are based on the principles of good quality in citizen security expenditure: results-oriented, balanced between prevention and control, targeted, and scientific evidence-based.

In turn, this menu of solutions is structured around four pillars: public security management and governance, violence prevention, police modernization, and access to justice and social reintegration.

Brazil’s 27 federative units (26 states plus the federal district) will be eligible for the program, along with municípios with either more than 100,000 inhabitants or that are among the 120 locations accounting for 50 percent of the country’s homicides.

Candidate locations will also need to have sufficient borrowing capacity to enter into a loan operation with BNDES, which will implement the credit line. The direct beneficiaries of this program will be the residents of the communities where the projects are implemented.

The subloans may be used to finance infrastructure, equipment, technology, and crime prevention or control programs. The minimum financing amount per eligible project will be $2 million, and the maximum amount will be $20 million. The program will be aligned with the Unified Public Security System’s (SUSP) guidelines as well as with the country’s efforts to prevent Afro-Brazilian youth homicide and violence against women. 

This is the third individual operation financed with resources from a $1.2 billion Conditional Credit Line for Investment Projects. It was approved by the IDB in November 2020 together with the first operation, aimed at supporting a State of Espírito Santo project to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public security and justice programs in Brazil. The second operation, supporting the State of Ceará, was approved in March 2021. 

The loan contract will be signed once the project goes through the approval processes of BNDES and the Brazilian government.

This operation is in line with Vision 2025 – Reinvesting in the Americas: A Decade of Opportunities, created by the IDB to achieve recovery and inclusive growth in Latin America and the Caribbean in the areas of digital economy and gender and inclusion, two of the Bank’s main priorities. 

The IDB’s $150 million loan is for a 25-year term, with a 5.5-year grace period and an interest rate based on LIBOR. There will be an additional $30 million in local counterpart funding for the program.