Management of urban water and sanitation, Bahia, Brazil

The management of water and sanitation services has always been a major concern in developing countries, where many people still do not have access to such services. Researchers have demonstrated that in majority of the cases failures in 'watsan' projects are related to lack of suitable institutional frameworks, rather than to technical problems. Lately, world-wide a higher private sector involvement in the provision of these services has been seen as a suitable mean of achieving institutional efficiency. In Bahia, Brazil, urban 'watsan' services have been run mainly by a state owned company, that, as in many developing countries, is 'in debt'. It is also an organisation providing insufficient maintenance and misallocating investments. In addition to these problems, there is no current formal policy for the sector. [Continues.]