shit and citizenship: the political economy of sanitation investment in brazil
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Shit and Citizenship: The Political Economy of
Sanitation Investment in Brazil
Alex Shankland IDS Participation, Power and Social Change Team
Ken Caplan Building Partnerships for Development in Water and Sanitation
The Global Study
• Study coordinated by Oxford Policy Management for Water & Sanitation Program (WSP) and World Bank
• Focusing on political economy of sanitation investments – who wins / who loses / who’s interested / who’s not
• Aim to unpack 4 country case studies (Brazil, India, Indonesia, Senegal)
• Goal for World Bank – to understand whether political economy angle provides clues on how better to drive sanitation investments
Sanitation Disconnects
• Paired with water• Sewerage focus in urban settings• Generally dominated by engineers &
financiers with focus on big-ticket construction
• Clear link to other issues – land tenure• MDGs – links sanitation to environment
rather than public health• Taboo makes use of waste untenable
Sanitation Investment in Brazil• In December 2009,
President Lula caused a storm by describing the mission of his government as being “to get the [Brazilian] people out of the shit”
• The Brazilian government now speaks of sanitation as a citizenship right – although barely half of households have a mains sewer connection (52.5% in 2008)
Sanitation Investment in Brazil
• 15 years ago, a right-wing state governor set in motion one of Brazil’s most ambitious and successful metropolitan sewerage expansion programmes by presenting a vision of Salvador as a modern, sanitised state capital – avoiding any reference to rights and participation
• Ideologies clashed over sanitation policy while growth in sewerage connections lagged behind expansion of other basic services for almost two decades – but now a new policy framework has broad support and investment is increasing rapidly
• Interviewees spoke of “the stars aligning” – but how did this alignment come about?
The Brazil Study• Six-person team (Alex Shankland, Ken Caplan, Klaus
Néder, Ivan Paiva, Luciana Lupo, Hernán Gómez Bruera) combining watsan engineers with specialists in institutional, social and political analysis
• Focused primarily on national policy shifts that took place between 1993-2009
• Used a programmatic case study – Bahia Azul Programme in Salvador – to understand how national policy dynamics were reflected in local level investments and vice-versa
• Reviewed attempts to spread innovative approaches to low-cost technologies (condominial with community participation)
• Sought to combine analysis of technical, financial and formal policy developments with understanding the social and political “subtext”
Sanitation Investments Pre-1993National level
• State-led investment thru inefficient utilities delivering sanitation thru conventional sewerage financed by loans repaid thru tariffs
• 0.46% of GDP invested in sanitation in 1970s; 0.24% in 1980s; 0.1% in 1991-2
• Military regime forced municipalities to grant concessions to state utilities
• Investments concentrated in middle-class developments, ignoring the favelas
• Hyperinflation, fiscal crisis and the “neoliberal shock”
Salvador• Salvador noted as largest city
in Western Hemisphere without mains sewer network
• Rapid unplanned urbanisation• EMBASA becoming more and
more indebted & inefficient• Major outflow system operating
at only 10% capacity (due to lack of connections) – Only 26% of city connected
• 23 out of 25 city beaches declared unsafe for swimming
• 1990 Bahia State elections won by former military appointee ACM with vision of Salvador as “modern capital”
Sanitation Investments 1993-2006National level
• WB-supported PMSS to boost efficiency of utilities – Linked to move in 1990s towards PSP (concession contracts) following energy & telecoms
• No clear institutional home for urban sanitation in 90s – Ministry of Cities emerged under Lula
• Lending as dominant finance mechanism benefiting state-run over municipal delivery
• Condominial sewerage emerging as approach to serving poor communities
• Ideological battles saw fortunes of “municipalistas”, “estadualistas” and “privatistas” shifting with party politics, but no group hegemonic
• Loan finance grew with economic stability but declined again after 1998 Asian crisis; grant funding oscillated with election cycles
Salvador• EMBASA selected to participate in
PMSS – begins to have positive cash flow in 1998 and to show profits in 2004
• US$600 million multi-component Bahia Azul Programme (with funding from IDB, WB, JBIC and national banks) launched in 1995 to clean up the Bay of All Saints
• Condominial implemented by EMBASA as technical solution not as community co-management
• By end of Bahia Azul, 70% connected
• Attempt to privatise EMBASA abandoned in 2001 after furious reaction from anti-PSP groups
• ACM-aligned state governments blocked civil society participation
• Mobilisation for condominial required EMBASA teams to develop close community links
Sanitation Investments from 2007National level
• Sanitation Law passed with hybrid model which kept virtually all options open
• Launch of Growth Acceleration Plan (PAC) including allocation of US$5 billion per year for sanitation; PAC slow to disburse at first
• Neither efforts to aggregate municipalities for PSP contracts nor state utility efforts to slow municipal contracts successful
• Hybrid model defuses ideological tensions
• Lula boosts citizenship discourse on sanitation
• Shifting expectations with social change in favelas
Salvador• Connections to sewerage had
risen to 90% by 2009 in main municipality
• All beaches safe for swimming• Approach remains largely the
same but rebranded away from Bahia Azul
• Introduced “social oversight” committee
• PT state governor emphasises PAC to show link with Lula and break with Bahia Azul
• Bahia Azul “brand” remains very strong in popular consciousness
• Neighbourhoods with condominial systems perceived as no longer favelas
Sanitation Investments Overview
• Need to grow the sector’s absorptive capacity but also to house sanitation more clearly in one institution
• Hybrid approach to delivery agents• Condominial cheaper option (still utility implemented)• Private sector used for construction• Clear benefits to health not part of discourse
Key to Bahia Azul’s success:• Management continuity• Key role of community workers to initiate (needed more
follow-up though) • Efficiency gains (by 2006 EMBASA had 4th lowest water
tariff in Brazil)
Social and Political Dynamics• Ideological tensions
unresolved, but hybrid model fits Brazil’s complex reality – and everyone gets something as long as the money is there to sustain expansion
• Near-universal water and electricity provision made sanitation the “next in line” priority for periurban poor
• Poor coverage a source of international embarrassment for newly confident Brazil
• Lula captured a shift in perception of sanitation as issue both of rights / dignity and social mobility / aspiration
Source: Cunha et al. 2006 (graphic provided by and reproduced by permission of Frederico Turolla).
Source: O Meio Norte 10.12.09 / TV Globo
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