Publication: Case Study—Copanor, Brazil
Date
2017-08
ISSN
Published
2017-08
Author(s)
Dos Santos Rocha, Wilson
Salvetti, Maria
Abstract
In 2006, the government of Minas Gerais
decided toimplement a bold investment program to make water
and sanitation universally accessible in the rural and
poorest region of the state. These areas had been leftaside
by the state water supply and sanitation (WSS) company,
COPASA (Companhia de Saneamento),which had predominantly
focused on urban access to WSS services. To do so, the
government conducted astudy entitled Project Vida no Vale
(VNV, or Life in theValley) that surveyed 1,852 rural
localities. Based onthe Project VNV recommendations, the
government of Minas Gerais created COPANOR (Copasa Serviços
deSaneamento Integrado do Norte e Nordeste de Minas Gerais),
a public company, a subsidiary of COPASA,which would be
specifically in charge of WSS operationsin rural
communities. However, despite the achievements of COPANOR,
it has not yet reached financial sustainability, which puts
the aggregation model at risk. The state government was
prompted to create COPANOR for two main reasons. First, the
state company COPASA resisted serving small localities, as
doing so could affect its overall sustainability and
potentially affect its capacity to deliver good-quality
services to its existing customers. Second, several previous
experiences of service delivery in ruralareas had failed.
However, the 2006 diagnosis found that many of the WSS
systemsfunded by PPNSR had been poorly maintained and were
dysfunctional. Hence, it became clear to the state
government that the PPNSR model should notbe repeated and
that an alternative model to deliver WSS service in rural
areas should be implemented. The purposes of the COPANOR
aggregation encompass professionalization and performance
enhancement aswell as economic efficiency.COPANOR also
enabled the use of economies ofscale when purchasing
treatment products. However,despite those achievements, some
progress still needs to be made as water macro metering is
not availableand there are no indicators for losses or
unaccounted-for water.
Citation
“Dos Santos Rocha, Wilson; Salvetti, Maria. 2017. Case Study—Copanor, Brazil. © Washington, DC: World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28345 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”