This article concerns the debate about anti-poverty policy in Brazil and analyzes the relations between concepts of poverty and interventions adopted to address it. The article begins with a review of the principal conceptual approaches to poverty, based upon which it analyzes how policy strategies implemented in the country affect the multiple determinants of the situation. The paper is highlighted by a discussion of the effectiveness of universal and or focused strategies. It demonstrates that the difficulties in implementing policies based on an understanding of poverty as a multidimensional problem weaken the consolidation of criteria of social justice and disregard the potential for integrated policies to achieve these principles.
poverty; social policies; intervention