What works in Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro has pioneered several community and city-scale interventions documented in the evidence. Program H was developed in Rio favelas from 1999–2001 as a gender-transformative curriculum for young men, now adapted in 32 countries, though only 3 of 14 documented impact studies are randomised controlled trials. CDI/Recode was founded in a Rio favela in 1995 and pioneered IT and citizenship schools pairing computer literacy with civic education, reaching 1.9 million people cumulatively, though most figures are self-reported rather than independently audited. Centro de Operações e Resiliência (COR) integrates 50+ city agencies' data into a 24/7 command centre built after 2010 landslides, reporting a 30%+ cut in emergency response time, though these figures come from the city and its partners rather than independent evaluation, and the EBRD notes that extreme disasters in 2020 still took a heavy toll on Rio.