According to the Guia para Municipalização dos Objetivos do Milênio – Referências para a adaptação de indicadores e metas à realidade local (“Guide for the Municipalization of the Millennium Goals – References for Adapting Indicators and Goals to the Local Reality”), the municipality can and should assume a leadership role in the area of development. In order to insert the municipalities of the Bahia Southern Lowlands into this discussion, the 1st Seminar on the Municipalization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) was held on February 22 in the city of Valença.

The event, which is an initiative of the General Department of the Presidency of the Brazilian Republic, the United Nations Development Program (PNUD) and the Association of Bahia Southern Lowland Municipalities (AMUBS), aims to form a Municipal MDG Center involving the participation of three different sectors of society. The proposal is to create a decree, law or seal that formalizes the presence and knowledge of the MDGs in the municipality as an orienting platform for resources and public policies.

Mauricio Medeiros, Executive Chair of the Odebrecht Foundation, created an exhibit on the innovative system of Participative Government that is used for the Bahia Southern Lowlands Environmental Protection Area Mosaic Program for Development and Growth Integrated with Sustainability (PDCIS), an initiative focused on and oriented toward the eight goals. “The differential of PDCIS is the interaction between the federal, state and municipal governments, private initiative and civil society that is driven by a common, superior and noble objective: the structuring of the rural middle class, which earns control of its own destination,” emphasized Medeiros.

The programming for the seminar also featured a lecture by Brazil’s National Secretary of Political and Social Relations, Wagner Caetano; former mayor of the municipality of Picuí in the State of Paraíba and President of the Federation of Paraíba Municipalities, Rubens Costa; Social Interface Coordinator of the Department of Institutional Relations and representative from the Bahia Government, Mary Souza; Advisor for Programs for the State of Bahia and representative from the “We Can Bahia” Movement, Frederico Lacerda; Public Prosecutor representing the Bahia Public Prosecutor’s Office, Clodoaldo Silva, and representative from the álvaro Bahia League – the Supporting Institution of the Martagão Gesteira Hospital, Márcia Guimarães.