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Brazil
Porto Alegre
Perhaps the most well-known example of a successful publicly-run utility in a developing country is that of Porto Alegre in Brazil.
In 1961, the city council in Porto Alegre decided to create a water and sanitation provider, called Departamento Municipal de Água e Esgotos (DMAE). Even though Porto Alegre has nearly doubled in size since 1961, DMAE has managed to keep pace with this growth, ensuring that 99.5 per cent of the population receive access to water supply and 84 per cent of households have sanitation services. The success of DMAE can be attributed to the active involvement of local people.
Recife
In Recife, Brazil, a decision-making process involving thousands of local people, was used to reform the poorly-performing public water provider. They rejected privatisation as a reform option, and instead voted to democratise the utility, to make it more responsive to their needs. Today, the reform process continues and decisions made by the company are subject to public scrutiny enabling local people to hold it to account.
In Brazil there are over 80 cases of successful reforms of the public water and sanitation sector, covering both urban and rural areas. A common factor is ‘social control’ – the active involvement of local people in running the utility.
Over 1700 water providers have now joined together to form the National Association of Municipal Sanitation Services (ASSEMAE). This group is working to facilitate the exchange of good practice amongst public water providers throughout Brazil. WDM is now working with colleagues in ASSEMAE and elsewhere to translate into English an ASSEMAE book of good practice models from across Brazil.
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