The role of the Pastoral da Criança program in the infant mortality transition in Brazil, 1980-2000

This dissertation focuses on the role Brazil’s innovative Pastoral da Criança program had on the transition in infant and child mortality observed in that country from 1980 to 2000. Using a variety of approaches to program evaluation, this study provides insights into the novel implementation of the Pastoral program and its overall effectiveness in contributing to the infant and child mortality transition in Brazil. This dissertation also tries to understand how it was that the Pastoral managed to succeed in promoting development when so many other efforts have failed in the past. Given the environment of complexity in which this evaluative exercise was carried out, triangulation, complementarity, development, initiation, and expansion analysis were used, at the micro level of evidence, to the macro level of methods, to generate robust estimations of the Pastoral overall impact in terms of reducing infant and child mortality, as well as of the Pastoral’s effects in terms of promoting community and women’s empowerment.