CONCLUSION
Upon this research it was extracted subsidies and lessons learned from current policies in relation to the six foundation axis for the PNMSA. The analysis identified in general the need for greater integration and complementarity among federal ministries and the implemented public policies. The construction of the PNMSA must seek to overcome this deficiency, integrating multisectoral actors and converging policy strategies and instruments into a more comprehensive common platform. In particular, connections with monitoring systems should be established to facilitate coordination between public actions. These measures would be more effective in optimizing the sustainable management of soil and water resources, avoiding overlapping of activities and fostering effective institutional integration.
The seven analyzed policies converge more or less intensely to the PNMSA’s building blocks according to the proposed analytical framework. In the Legislation axis, PNMA, PNCMDES, PNRH and PNAPO have greater adherence, while in the Prevention axis, the PNMA, PNCMDES, PNRH and Forest Code policies showed greater alignment within their instruments. In the Conservation axis, PNAPO, PNMC and PNRH stand out with associated financial mechanisms to support farmers adoption of conservation practices. The Recovery axis was the one that presented the least interface with current government instruments, indicating the opportunity for PNMSA to fill this gap to enable the reinsertion of degraded into productive systems.
Regarding policy governance and institutional framework, it can be concluded that the governance mechanisms available on PNAPO and PNRH policies offer a framework with the involvement of different groups of actors in different spheres of coverage, providing greater capillarity, decentralization and social participation in decision making process. The construction of the PNMSA can capitalize on the spaces and governance mechanisms already constituted by these policies, in order to facilitate the involvement of a greater number of stakeholders in the process of public decision. This capillarity becomes essential to address problems and solutions on a smaller scale and customized to local realities, allowing the conformation of greater participation by society in concrete actions with greater potential success in achieving the goals of sustainable management of soil and water resources.
The present transversal analysis of the policies contemplated in this work, raised important recommendations for the construction of the PNMSA particularly for recovery and monitoring strategies. The construction of the PNMSA should prioritize monitoring systems more transparent to society that can dialogue and be complemented with other related policies. The monitoring systems should produce reports about the advance of sustainable management of soil and water resources in an annual basis. In the Recovery axis, the research envisioned the need to built mechanisms to map and prospect scenarios aimed at integrating and advancing actions between ministries, states, municipalities and economic sectors. It is also suggested a design of a collaborative database and agile instruments for reversing degradation processes. Indeed, the Recovery axis, turned out to be the topic with the greatest opportunity for the PNMSA to aggregate contributions and innovations.
This paper shows the opportunity for the PNMSA to cover a policy gap and provide a balanced and integral response to the foreseen axis, based on the learning curve shown in the evaluation of the institutional contents and normative articulation of public policies. The PNMSA has the opportunity and the need to aspire to the highest possible score in its institutional design, also supporting an open and participatory process with social, governmental and private actors, as learned upon the analysis of the other policy framework.
The production of maximum scores in a policy resulting from collective social engagement towards adaptation of policy objectives, measures and indicators, shall be realistic and operative to reach PNMSA results, essential for the sustainable rural development of Brazil. This work presents relevant information for the formulation of the PNMSA, enabling the planning of actions that meet the expected axis as well as greater integration between other policies, based on the learning shown in the assessment of the institutional design (its contents and normative articulation) of the policies public analyzed. The greater integration of the policies analyzed together with the incorporation of the advances necessary to meet the strategic axis in the PNMSA formulation can contribute significantly to increase Brazilian agricultural production on a sustainable basis and other ecosystem services.