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