Public water supply and sanitation policy in Rio de Janeiro: Discussing the emergence of new forms of inequality and injustice

In Rio de Janeiro City, access to water and sanitation services is still highly unequal. Many large areas occupied by low-income people suffer intermittent water supply and non-existent sewage systems, such as, the western area, where residents are predominantly low/middle-income. For many years, although recognized as a municipal duty, the various governments never assumed the respective service management. The delegation of services to the statewide public company, CEDAE, meant abdication on the part of the municipal government from engagement in service management. The prospect of the mega sporting events, namely the World Cup 2014 and the 2016 Olympics, are inducing change in this situation. Because of the environmental requirements related to these projects, and the logic of real estate valuation related to them, the Rio de Janeiro municipality  has become more proactive concerning  water and sanitation services by forming public-private partnerships. For instance, for  expansion and management of the west zone sewage systems, a 25-year concession is to be granted to a private group.

The objective of this paper is to discuss the current municipal policy for water supply and sanitation services, examining the emergence of new forms of inequality and injustice. We also seek to identify obstacles concerning  democratization of water services governance and management, considering that this policy has been developed without social control, guided by a fragile water and sanitation plan that does not include these principles. Our hypothesis is that the paths followed by municipal water supply and sanitation policy in the past four years have aggravated a situation of unequal access to these services, designed to treat such services as a commodity, not as a citizenship right.