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GEO-6 Regional Assessment for Latin America and the Caribbean


18. Increasing access to potable drinking water in Ceará, Brazil


THE PROBLEM: approximately 20 million people or two thirds of the rural population of Brazil have no access to basic services such as safe drinking water and sanitation. The National Health Foundation reported in 2009 only 32.8% of the rural population were connected to a drinking water supply system and the connection to sewerage systems was 22 per cent. Little progress has been made in improving this situation in Brazil, not only as a result of limited funding and political will, but also due to: the decreasing rural population (in the 1940’s 68.8% of the total population was in rural areas compared to only 15.6% in 2010); the rural population sparseness in a vast territory; a non-existent widely accepted model to provide public service by the governments (probably because the different sizes of the rural communities require tailored solutions); and there is no economical scale to provide public services. Even though, there are many different initiatives by local, state or federal governments. For instance, in the Ministry of Environment there is the Program “Água Doce”, which provides technical assistance to the rural communities in the Semi-arid region of Brazil by drilling wells, implementing treatment of the brackish water through membranes and training the local community to operate the service.


ACTION TAKEN: the State of Ceará implemented an integrated rural water supply and sanitation system (SISAR), which consists of a federation of community associations specifically created to self-manage the local systems, with technical support from the State’s Water and Sanitation Company (CAGECE). Each SISAR unit is legally constituted as a private non-profit civil association that manages the rural water supply and sanitation systems operated by affiliated community associations. It administers its own funds, which are received either from the government or from private donors, and other revenues including money charged for its services.


MAJOR PRE-REQUISITE FOR SUCCESS: this system, which achieves self-sustainability, is difficult to implement in communities with fewer than 50 families.


RESULT: User participation is the most important factor in developing sustainability, while participatory mechanisms, such as this, lead to more investment in the supply of water and sanitation in rural areas and greater commitment from the public sector in providing management and increasing access. The partnership between CAGECE and SISAR has led to increased social responsibility by contributing to environmental preservation.


Source: GWP (2015). Global Water Partnership, Brazil: An innovative management model for rural water supply and sanitation in Ceará State (#411). Available at: http://www.gwp. org/en/ToolBox/CASE-STUDIES/Americas--Caribbean/Brazil- An-innovative-management-model-for-rural-water-supply- and-sanitation-in-Ceara-State-411/ Accessed in October 2015.


19. Adopt a River Programme - Trinidad and Tobago


The Adopt a River Programme, the first of its kind in the Caribbean, is an initiative that brings communities and corporate entities together for the improvement of watersheds throughout Trinidad and Tobago in a sustainable, holistic and coordinated manner.


The programme began in 2013 with one adopter, the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), adopting the Guanapo watershed. The community identified the leachate from the Guanapo landfill and heavy siltation from the quarries as the major sources of pollution to the river.


In an effort to inspire water champions, the community was trained in water-quality testing to collect monthly samples from the Guanapo River using a basic testing kit. This was the first successfully completed project under the programme and provided the first water-quality dataset


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