Políticas Públicas no Espaço Rural da Costa Sol Poente: avaliação do PRODETUR no Município de Acaraú - Ce

Abstract

Dealing with public policies is to go beyond a presentation and the knowledge of their definitions. It means to discuss how these actions are formulated, what their purposes are and what the consequences for their creation and implementation are. Public policies directed to tourism activities have the potential to make important changes in the quality of life of the population. They consist on guiding directives of the public power, which governs norms and procedures for its relations with society. Tourism flow imposes modifications throughout the coast of Ceará, which has been experiencing a growing transformation in its use and occupation with the implementation of infrastructure services. The region of Polo Costa do Sol was a priority of PRODETUR / CE II and the town of Acaraú which is considered in the local context a touristic corridor due to the flow of tourists that pass through Acaraú coming from Fortaleza on their way to Jericoacoara. In this sense, this work general objective is to evaluate if the public policies resulting from the action of PRODETUR/NE II for the development of Tourism in the Costa Sol Poente promoted socioeconomic transformations that contributed to the reduction of inequalities in the town of Acaraú-CE with the improvement of living conditions of families and the diversification of the regional economy from 2005 to 2018. The theoretical support of this research rests on the bibliographical research carried out, categories of analysis that allow the understanding of the Tourism space. For the development of this demand, investigative methods in the evaluation of public policies with the adoption of the in-depth evaluation proposal were used, considering the importance for the understanding of the policy, its content and institutional trajectory, along with the constructivist evaluation methodology of Guba and Lincoln (1989), with the hermeneutic-understanding interpretation that takes into account the claims, concerns, and aspects of representatives and beneficiaries. As the results showed, the interviewees' consensus was reached on the main actions of PRODETUR in the region such as the construction of the highway CE 085, which represented a milestone for other local initiatives focused on the growth of touristic activities. With the end of the study, we reach the conclusion that the Tourism Development Program contributed to important modifications in the rural area of the municipality under examination, but that there is still the challenge of building public policies in a more participative way, besides improving the capacity of tourism management.