As one of the main themes investigated by MUNIC 2012, the percentage of municipalities with Environmental Fund jumped from 1.5% in 2002 to 37.2% in 2012. As to the resources available for the Municipal Administration, the percentage of municipalities that adopted mechanisms to attract investments increased from 49.5% in 2006 to 62.9% in 2012.

Though 74.3% (4,133) municipalities stated that they had an organizational structure to deal with Transportation, only 3.8% of them actually have a Municipal Transportation Plan. Only 3.7% have a Municipal Transportation Fund and 6.4%, a Municipal Transportation Council.

Concerning Public Safety and Justice, it is worth highlighting the number of municipalities whose guard carried firearms (153), as well as the significant decrease of municipalities in which the safety structure is directly linked with the mayor´s office: from 48.6% in 2006 to 37.2% in 2012.

For the first time, MUNIC 2012 investigated some aspects of the legal and administrative structure of the Nutrition and Food Security policy, concluding that 39.3% of the municipalities had an organizational structure for this. However, the percentage of municipalities that had a Municipal Nutritional and Food Security Plan was low, 17.7% (986).

Another important piece of information is that 16.4% (911) of the Brazilian municipalities had municipal budget for funding policies of nutritional and food security, excluding counterpart funds from state and federal covenants.

Also for the first time, MUNIC investigated whether the city hall provided access to the Internet through wi-fi connection, concluding that 795 of them provided such services. Moreover, 90.5% of the municipalities had either a policy or plan of digital inclusion and 76.8% of them installed computers in the public education network.

In addition to these data, MUNIC 2012 provided a detailed survey of the city hall organization, staff, supervising instruments, planning policies, services and urban infrastructure, among additional information related to communication and information technology, transportation, culture, social assistance, public safety, environment and nutritional and food security.  On its tenth edition, the survey investigated all the 5,565 established municipalities.  The data collection was carried out between May and December 2012.

The complete publication can be accessed at https://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/economia/perfilmunic/2012/default.shtm

39.3% of municipalities structured in terms of nutrition and food security

For the first time, MUNIC 2012 investigated some aspects of the legal and administrative structure of the nutrition and food security policy, concluding that 39.3% (2,187) of the municipalities had an organizational structure for this, most of them linked to direct administration as a sector under another department (78.1%). In regional terms, the Northeast (46.2%) registered the biggest number of municipalities with such structure. Structured municipalities could be even found in Roraima and Acre, where there are no structures at state level.

As to the Municipal Council of Nutrition and Food Security - body responsible for taking nutrition and food security management to the civil society -, 27.1% (1,507) of the Brazilian municipalities reported its existence. In regard to their operation, 73.2% (1,103) had meetings in the last 12 months and 30.5% (459) received budget resources from the municipal administration to support their activities. Only Roraima reported the inexistence of councils in all of its municipalities, unlike the state instance, in which all the Federation Units reported the existence of State Councils of Nutrition and Food Security in 2012.

Nevertheless, only 5.2% of the Brazilian municipalities (291) had Inter-sectoral Chambers of Nutrition and Food Security to promote the integration between offices and entities of the public administration in order to fulfill the policies of this sector. The percentage is also low in relation to Municipal Plans of Nutrition and Food Security: 17.7% (986) of the municipalities had such instrument. The prevailing actions in such plans were: school feeding, acquisition of food for family farming, nutrition and food education, and health and nutrition actions. Conversely, actions like surveys, studies and diagnoses related to nutrition and food security, construction of cisterns and use of information systems to manage, monitor and assess policies were less reported.

In 2012, only 16.4% (911) of the Brazilian municipalities had municipal budget for funding nutrition and food security policies, excluding counterpart funds from state and federal covenants.

Only 3.8% of the municipalities have a Municipal Plan of Transportation

In 2012, 4,133 (74.3%) Brazilian municipalities had an organizational structure to deal with transportation, 6.4% had a Municipal Council of Transportation and 3.7% had a Municipal Fund of Transportation. MUNIC also noticed that only 3.8% of the municipalities had a Municipal Plan of Transportation. As to the kind of transportation, 0.3% of the municipalities had subway services, 2.5% train services, 55.3% motorcycle taxi services, 67.7% shuttle services and, in relation to bus services, 38% (2,114) had municipal bus services and 85.8% (4,775), inter-municipal bus services.

Municipal civil guard uses firearms in 153 Brazilian municipalities

In the last six years surveyed, MUNIC registered a significant decrease in the number of municipalities counting on safety structures directly linked with the mayor´s office: from 48.6% of the municipalities in 2006 to 37.2% in 2012. 

The municipal civil guard was present in 17.8% (993) of the municipalities and used firearms in 153 of them. As to the police stations, the number of general police stations decreased (from 83.7% to 81.8%), whereas the number of specialized police stations increased between 2009 and 2012, probably due to the public policies particularly targeted to certain parts of the population, like women, children and teenagers, and the elderly.

MUNIC recorded an increase of 7.0% from 2009 to 2012 (from 59.3% to 66.3%) in the number of municipal offices of civil defense in the municipalities. The South Region stood out with 89.4% of the municipalities reporting some kind of civil defense unit. In the Southeast, the states of Rio de Janeiro (96.7%) and Espírito Santo (92.3%) registered the highest percentages in the region (73.3%). The lowest percentages were in the Central-West (32.0%) and North (36.7%) regions.

Municipal conservation units available in 24.4% of the municipalities in 2012

Between 2002 and 2012, MUNIC noticed that the percentage of municipalities with any structure in the environmental area (department, sector or office of the indirect administration) increased from 67.5% to 88.5%. By jumping from 1.5% in 2002 to 37.2% in 2012, the percentage of municipalities with Environmental Fund was also a highlight, as well as with Environmental Councils (from 34.1% in 2002 to 63.6%) and with River Basin Committees (from 46.8% to 67.4% ). The number of municipalities with a specific legislation on the environmental area also increased (from 42.5% in 2002 to 55.4% in 2012), as well as those with Municipal Conservation Units (from 17.1% to 24.4%).

The percentage of municipalities with land subdivision laws for urban purposes is relatively low, as is with those defining priority zones for environmental protection (21.8%), with contingency plans in case of environmental disasters (11.8%) and that pay for environmental services (7.5%) to stimulate the recovery, maintenance and improvement of ecosystems.

62.9% of the municipalities adopt mechanisms to attract enterprises

MUNIC 2012 noticed the bigger effort of the administrative and tributary structures to face the increase of their own financial resources, highlighted by the investments for controlling tax collection, like the automation of the Urban Building and Land Tax - IPTU and Services Tax - ISS registries. Likewise, the introduction of a number of different fees and the provision of incentives to attract enterprises are important mechanisms to increase the tax collection of the municipalities.

49.5% of the municipalities adopted such mechanisms in 2006, while 62.9% did that in 2012, an increase of 27%. The most common incentives were those not related to tax collection, like cession (24.2%) and donation (26.3%) of land.

Communication and Information Technology: 76.8% of the municipalities have computers in public schools

In 2012, 95.0% (5,289) of the municipalities provided some form of distance support, most of them through the Internet (88.7%). It was also noticed that 74.5% of the municipalities had webpages. 11.2% (466) of them reported that their webpages were accessible to disabled persons. MUNIC also surveyed the existence of policies or plans of digital inclusion and concluded that 90.5% (5,034) of the municipalities were developing them. 76.8% of the municipalities reported to have installed computers in public schools and 76.2% installed tele-centers as projects and actions of digital inclusion. MUNIC investigated for the first time whether the municipal administration provided the access to the Internet through wi-fi connection, concluding that 795 (14.3%) municipalities provided these services, from which 744 (13.4%) provided free access, 382 (6.9%) provided restricted coverage to some districts in the urban area and 181 (3.3%) provided coverage in urban and rural areas.

Public libraries available in 97% of municipalities

As to the cultural framework of the municipalities, MUNIC noticed that only 32.3% of the municipalities had Municipal Councils of Culture. Concerning the six characteristics of the Councils (joint, consultive, deliberative, regulating, supervisory and annually met), the overall average for Brazil was 4.2 instruments. In addition, MUNIC surveyed the protection of the cultural heritage of material (available in 29.9% of the municipalities) and immaterial nature (available in 9.8%), the existence of cultural equipment like, for example, public libraries (97%) and the existing cultural and artistic activities in the municipalities, among other topics.

Social Assistance: 72.6% of municipalities have exclusive departments

As to the municipalization of social assistance, the 2012 figures showed that an organizational structure for the Municipal Policy of Social Assistance was available in almost all the municipalities, the majority of them linked to the direct administration and structured as an exclusive department or joined with other policies. Exclusive municipal departments, which were available in 59.0% of the municipalities in 2005, reached 72.6% in 2012. On the other hand, the municipalities in which this sector was directly subordinate to the mayor office changed from 12.9% in 2005 to only 3.6% in 2012. The policy of social assistance with departmental status, either exclusive or associated with other policies, was available in 93.7% of the municipalities, pointing to the continuous recognition of this policy by municipal administrations.

South Region has more participatory instruments for urban management and planning

In 2012, 1,231 Brazilian municipalities had municipal councils of urban policy, the equivalent of 22.1% of the total. Although a low proportion, it represented a growth of 68.3% when compared with 2005 (731 municipalities or 13.1%). The biggest proportion of municipalities with the respective councils were located in the South Region, 40.3% in 2012.  As to the periodicity of meetings, indicator that measures the performance of the councils, the survey recorded that 72.1% (888) municipal councils had meetings in the last 12 months. It meant that 27.9% of the councils did not gather in the indicated period, which is not a negligible figure if we consider its importance for the formulation of public policies.

MUNIC also noticed that 2,658 (47.8%) municipalities had Urban Master Plans in 2012, available in only 805 (14.5%) municipalities in 2005. Like councils, the South Region registered the biggest coverage. 69% of its municipalities reported to have urban master plans in 2012, suggesting the adoption of participatory instruments for urban management and planning.

Persons employed in direct administration increases 33.2% between 2005 and 2012

The total number of persons employed in the direct and indirect municipal administrations in Brazil increased 31.7% (1,512,611 more persons) between 2005 and 2012, adding up to 6,280,213 persons in 2012, or 3.2% of the estimated Brazilian population. The majority of human resources is in the direct administration (95.3% or 5,985,248 persons), whereas only 4.7% (294,965) is in the indirect administration (companies and foundations).

The number of persons employed in the direct administration increased 33.2% (1,491,094) between 2005 and 2012, most of them statutory servants (62.6% or 3,746,899). The indirect administration increased the number of employed persons by 7.9% (21 thousand persons more) between 2005 and 2012, though the number of municipalities with this kind of administration decreased from 1,053 to 1,033 (-1.9%). The majority of the persons employed in the indirect administration was also of statutory servants (40.8% or 120,427 persons).