The Inter-American Development Bank announced today the approval of a US$960,000 grant to Rio de Janeiro’s State Water and Sewerage Company (CEDAE in Portuguese) to prepare a program to improve its commercial management and operational efficiency.
This technical cooperation operation, with resources from the Japanese Trust Fund for Consultancy Services at the IDB, will help improve living conditions for the population in metropolitan Rio de Janeiro by raising the quality of sanitation services and social and environmental conditions.
“The program will assist the government of the State of Rio in identifying and designing actions to provide a better water service at a more equitable price and to promote the sustainable development of the water sector in the state,” said IDB Team Leader Hugo de Oliveira. “Moreover, the program will integrate other natural resources management initiatives in the region and help coordinate the decision-making process at the state and local government levels.”
The institutional, operational, economic and financial modernization of CEDAE will enable the company to improve the quality of sanitation services as well as to implement a second phase of the Guanabara Bay Pollution Abatement Program initiated in 1994.
CEDAE, a state-owned public utility, covers 62 of the 91 municipalities of the state of Rio de Janeiro, with a population of 14,7 million. The majority of customers are concentrated in the Greater Rio region comprised by the city and nine other municipalities.
The Japanese Trust Fund for Consultancy Service (JCF) was established at the IDB in 1995 by the Japanese Government. It provides non-reimbursable resources for technical services to prepare and implement IDB-supported projects in all sectors and in all the Bank’s borrowing member countries. Projects supported by the fund have used Japanese expertise in environmental conservation, natural disaster prevention and mitigation, infrastructure, health, business and finance.
Local counterpart funds for the project will total US$240,000.