This paper hopes to contribute to the understanding of the determinants of poverty and inequality in Brazil, identify some of the main challenges and spell out policy implications for reducing poverty and inequality over the short term (next three or four years) and medium term (next decade or two). The analysis presented here hopes to contribute to this discussion by: i) providing a description of the key features of the evolution of Brazil¿s poverty and inequality over the last two decades based on the latest available data; ii) using analytical tools to distinguish between the main features of poverty and inequality (the symptoms) and their probable determinants (the causes); and iii) identifying some of the key policies to address those determinants and thus contribute to the permanent reduction in Brazil¿s poverty and inequality .
