Policy Transfer and International Organisations: The Complex Relationship between Brazil and the World Bank in the Implementation of the Bolsa Família Program

Abstract This article discusses the complex relationship between the World Bank and the Brazilian government regarding the implementation of the Bolsa Família Program (Family Allowance Program) from 2004 onwards. The hypothesis is that there was an alignment of the agendas for combating hunger and poverty among the entities. This made it possible to transfer Brazilian instruments and experiences to the world through World Bank. Based on a triangulation technique, it argues that the development of state capacity for the implementation of the program took place on a more cooperative basis than an imposition on the part of the World Bank, in a positive-sum game. Brazil gained the World Bank’s seal of approval as a model of policy transfer to the world and the international organisation found new experience of best practices, which renewed the Bank’s portfolio of policy instruments. As a result, in the last years of Lula’s second term, Brazil became an export platform for social policies in an international context, specifically concerning conditional cash transfer and poverty reduction policies.