Background
Celso Furtado was born on July 26, 1920, in Pombal, Paraiba, Brazil.
1961
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, United States
President John Kennedy and Celso Furtado, director of Brazil's Northeast Redevelopment Agency, confer at the White House. Later, the White House announced that grain and lard would be shipped to Brazil under the United States "Food for Peace" program.
1961
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, United States
President John Kennedy and Celso Furtado, director of Brazil's Northeast Redevelopment Agency, confer at the White House. Later, the White House announced that grain and lard would be shipped to Brazil under the United States "Food for Peace" program.
1962
Young Celso Furtado in 1962.
Av. Pedro Calmon, 550 - Cidade Universitária, Rio de Janeiro - RJ, 21941-901, Brazil
Celso Furtado earned a Law Degree at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1944.
75005 Paris, France
Furtado earned a Ph. D. in Economics at the Sorbonne in 1948.
Celso Furtado's portrait.
Celso Furtado as a Minister of Culture.
Celso Furtado was awarded the Ordem do Mérito Cultural for his service as a Minister of Culture.
Celso Furtado was a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
Celso Furtado was a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.
Celso Furtado was born on July 26, 1920, in Pombal, Paraiba, Brazil.
After earning a Law Degree at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1944, Celso Furtado went to Europe, where he fought with the Allies as part of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in Italy. After the war, Furtado completed a Ph. D. Degree in Economics at the Sorbonne in 1948.
As a Director of the Economic Development Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America from 1949 through 1953 in Santiago, Furtado argued that developing Latin American economies required agrarian reform and import-substituting industrialization. In 1953 he was given the chance to advance these ideas when he became a Head of a Joint Study Group established by Economic Commission for Latin America and the Brazilian National Bank for Economic Development. The group's seven-year plan for Brazil, reported in 1956 and 1957, became the structure of President Juscelino Kubitschek's economic development program.
After returning to Santiago, Furtado joined forces in Brazil with the Working Group for the Development of the Northeast. Furtado prepared a plan calling for colonizing frontier areas, boosting electricity supply, changing the agrarian structure, industrialization, and creating the Development Superintendency for the Northeast - Sudan. Sudene agency was established in 1959, with Furtado serving until 1964 as its superintendent. In 1961, at Furtado's prompting, President Jânio Quadros initiated a system of fiscal incentives to encourage Brazilian companies to invest in the Northeast. In July 1961, Furtado met with the United States President John Kennedy and, by some accounts, persuaded him that the Northeast could be a showcase for the Alliance for Progress. In 1962, the United States Agency for International Development pledged 131 million dollars to develop the region.
Late in 1962, President João Goulart named Furtado Brazil's First Minister of Planning. The Goulart administration's attempts to slow inflation through fiscal reform failed, and in June 1963 Furtado resigned. Ten days after seizing power in 1964, Brazil's generals included Furtado on the list of those deprived of their political rights, causing him to leave the country.
Furtado was a Visiting Professor at Harvard, Cambridge from 1973 to 1974, and Columbia in 1977, a Professor at the Sorbonne from 1965 to 1979, and in 1980 became a Director of Research at the College for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences at the University of Paris. He became a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement’s National Executive Committee, and from 1985 to 1986 was an Ambassador to the European Community in Brussels. President Jose Sarney selected him to be the country's culture minister from 1986 until 1988.
Celso Furtado together with Raúl Prebisch is considered to be the Economic Structuralism formulator and Structuralist Economics school founder.