Desenvolvimento e sustentabilidade no Semiárido Brasileiro: A Política de Desenvolvimento Regional e o PISF

Abstract

The mainly question to answer in this research was: What are the development and sustainable strategies inside the Regional Development policy for the Brazilian semiarid and for the Integration Project for São Francisco River with Northeast hydrographic bays – PISF? The primary objective of this study was to elucidate the role of development and sustainability in the regional development policy for the Semiarid and PISF. The secondary objectives were: (a) analyze the development strategies and discourse applied on the Semiarid and PISF policy; (b) aspects and relation of the different sustainability assigned in both initiatives (c) understand the treatment given to ecological and socio-environmental factors in the operations studied. For this purpose was used the qualitative methodology, of bibliographical and documentary nature, used resources of the method of content analysis in its thematic and evaluative fractions when dealing with documents and literature consulted. About the regional development policy, are verified a set of plans that set the guidelines for the development of the Semi-arid within the scope of the 21st century. In the PISF context, the objects of verification and analysis are its institutional design, socio-environmental and economic actions and diverse social consequences. The research assumes sustainable development - DS as the main theoretical core of research. As a result, it was observed that the regional development policy for the semi-arid region is methodologically based on sustainable development, under the discourse of the balance between economic growth, social homogeneity and environmental protection. The DS approach inscribed there is anthropocentric, with an emphasis on achieving social and economic goals. On the other hand, the PISF presents a development discourse that is performative, with a legitimating nature. Its strategy in this developmentalist is water security, which in itself does not guarantee development results, besides it does not include institutional devices nor actions capable of engendering the qualitative transformations that such a process suggests. It also subverts several of the basic features of different sustainability and environmental policy and governance. It also subverts several of the basic features of different sustainability and environmental policy and governance. Although it does in fact involve environmental practices and strategies related to the category of sustainability, it simultaneously suffers from several ecological and socioenvironmental problems, including components or values of opposite meanings.