Ver-O-Cuidado: o papel da cooperação internacional no processo de construção da política pública de cuidado de Belém do Pará

Abstract

This research aims to understand the role played by international cooperation in the formulation of the first pilot-plan of care public policy in Brazil, the Ver-O-Cuidado project. Orchestrated by UN Women, Open Society Foundations, and 11 Belém City Hall agencies, the initiative sought to raise awareness of the care economy, which refers to the economically invisible work of producing goods or services necessary for the maintenance of life, and is mostly performed by women. Given the incipient political initiatives on this topic in Brazil and the prominence of international entities in policymaking, the project's formulation becomes the subject of study by questioning how international cooperation can influence local agendas. To address this question, the analysis employed was qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive. Data collection included semi-structured interviews with the politicians responsible for formulating the project, in addition to a search for journalistic and documentary evidence. Based on the documented evidence, process-tracing techniques were employed to triangulate data, which served as the basis for creating a plausible narrative of the policymaking process. Finally, we analyzed how the literature on public policy diffusion can help understand the process under study. It was concluded that international influence played a role based on networking, culminating in the insertion of the topic of care on the political agenda of the capital of Pará as a work activity, influenced by an understanding of the topic internationally endorsed by international organizations.