A new book highlights twenty public water delivery success stories in Brazil. The stories come from a wide range of communities both wealthy and poor, large and small. The book, Successful Experiences in Municipal Public Water and Sanitation Services from Brazil, was first published in Portuguese in June 2006 by the National Association of Municipal Services of Water and Sanitation. It’s now available online in English.
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.
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.
The translated edition of the book is a joint effort by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), Transnational Institute (TNI) and the World Development Movement (WDM).