Successful Experiences in Municipal Public Water and Sanitation Services from Brazil

This is a translation of Experiências de Êxito em Serviços Públicos Municipais de Saneamento, published by ASSEMAE (Associação Nacional dos Serviços Municipais de Saneamento), June 2006.

The book presents twenty examples of successful public water delivery in large and small, wealthy and poor municipalities across Brazil. The city of Porto Alegre is already known around the world for its use of participatory budgeting and other democratic reforms to achieve universal access to clean water. The book shows that similar approaches are used in many other cities in Brazil and in many cases have led to rapid expansion of access to water and sanitation for the poorest communities.

Examples are the city of Alagoinhas (140,000 inhabitants) in the poor north-east of Brazil and Santo Andre (670,000 inhabitants) in the industrial region around Sao Paolo. The cases in the book, selected by a group of water sector specialists following strict criteria, show that public water utilities can achieve universal access, also in very difficult socio-economic circumstances. Key features of the successes presented in the book are a strong political will to improve public water delivery and, importantly, "social control": reforms that boost citizen's involvement and democratic control over public services.

"Successful Experiences in Municipal Public Water and Sanitation Services from Brazil" is published by ASSEMAE, the federation of more than 1,700 public water and sanitation companies from municipalities from across Brazil.

Successful Experiences in Municipal Public Sanitation Services from Brazil

English Version

Co-ordinated by: Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), Transnational Institute (TNI),  World Development Movement (WDM)

Click the individual chapters to download the pdf. 

• Foreword and Introduction 
• Water supply and sanitation services overview in Brazil by Silvano Silverio da Costa
• Alagoinhas: Participation and Social Control 
• Araraquara: Universal Service
• Campinas: A Public Company with focus on the citizen 
• Caxias do Sul: The Aim is to treat sewage in the short term
• Guaíra: Superiority in Sanitation
• Guarulhos: A success story 
• Ibiporã: Consortium strengthens sanitation 
• Ituiutaba: Perfect relationship with the client 
• Jaboticabal: Public Investments Fund 
• Passos: Meeting the challenges with external technical assistance
• Penápolis: A Complete Cycle 
• Piracicaba: Where the fish stops 
• Poços de Caldas: The best Human Development Index in Minas Gerais 
• Porto Alegre: The Capital of municipal sanitation 
• Sacramento: From external supervision to autonomy 
• Santo André: Showcase of Sanitation 
• Umberlândia: Planning Growth 
• Unaí: The City grows by 358% in the 38 years of universal provision of sanitation services 
• Viçosa: Efficiency in combating water waste 
• Volta Redonda: Planning, the weapon of the Autonomous Service