There is ample room for progress in basic sanitation – 02/26/2024 – Cecilia Machado

Some economic development indicators place Brazil far below what would be expected for an upper middle-income country. One example is access to basic sanitation. Data from the most recent Census showed some progress between 2010 and 2022. Even so, there are still around 50 million people in Brazil today without adequate exhaustion.

It is no coincidence that universal access to sanitation was part of one of the sustainable development goals established by the United Nations in 2015 to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and end inequalities. It is a basic human right, which has immediate consequences for people’s lives and which really needs to be guaranteed universally.

But inadequate sanitation is also an obstacle to social and economic development, through illnesses and premature deaths that could be avoided and which are propagated in the population’s loss of educational and work opportunities and the costs they impose on the health system.

A study by the World Health Organization estimates that for every US$1 invested in sanitation, US$5 is returned in lower health costs, increased productivity and fewer premature deaths. After all, there are many diseases linked to inadequate sanitation. The list includes diarrhea and diseases caused by ingestion of contaminated water and food, such as amoebiasis, schistosomiasis and hepatitis A, or linked to local conditions, such as dengue fever.

More perversely, its impacts affect the population in situations of social vulnerability and poverty more than proportionally. In regional terms, 90.7% of the population in the Southeast region has adequate exhaustion, a percentage that drops to 46.4% in the North region. In the demographic record, the lack of basic sanitation affects more children than the elderly and more black and brown people than white people.

We are still a long way from universalizing sewage collection and treatment, but the new sanitation framework, established in 2020, brings a promising perspective for the sector. In addition to the ambitious goal of universalization by 2033 —expanding sewage collection and treatment to 90% of the population and expanding access to drinking water to 99% of the population—, the milestone also established a set of measures that should guarantee more investments in sanitation .

Among them is regulatory standardization, with national reference standards adopted through tax or financing incentives, which guarantees greater legal certainty in service provision contracts. The framework also encourages the entry of the private sector into the sector through concessions and partnerships, increasing competition and facilitating the selection of companies with better governance and high productivity in tenders.

Finally, integrated provision involving more than one municipality, which takes advantage of economies of scale in the provision of sanitation services, benefits precisely smaller cities and populations with lower purchasing power.

Despite the unnecessary noise created by the attempt to change some points of the sanitation framework in 2023, projections point to an expansion of investments in sanitation, which could reach R$30 billion in 2024. The increase, of around 50% on a nominal basis in compared to 2022, driven by both private and public investments, already appears to be a result of the changes established in the new framework.

Access to adequate sanitation impacts quality of life, better health conditions, reduced worker absenteeism and children’s learning, with effects that amplify over time. But investing in this segment with high social and economic returns has only become possible now, with the new sanitation framework.

The milestone introduced changes that reduce regulatory risks, attract new participants and determine that service provision needs to reach everyone. It is a reform that creates conditions for the universalization of basic sanitation and has great potential to reduce inequalities and increase the growth of our economy.

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