World Bank provides loan for water project in Brazil

The World Bank has provided a $70.3m loan to the Brazilian state of Sergipe for a water project that will provide improved water services to the area.

The loan will be used by the Sergipe Water Project to increase access to safe water and sanitation in the most populous basin in the state.

The loan will also allow the project to reduce pollution, promote efficient irrigated agriculture and improve Sergipe’s ability to have more integrated water management and a more resilient water sector.

The water supply project will focus on the Sergipe river basin, which is home of more than half of Sergipe’s two million inhabitants, including the state capital, Aracaju.

The basin has a 65% water supply deficit, with a daily demand for 260,000m³ of water and a supply of only 87,000 m³.

By 2015, the project aims to increase the number of household sanitation connections by at least 88,000 in the target cities along the Sergipe river basin, as well as creating and strengthening an agency responsible for state-wide water resources management and reducing the yearly wastewater discharges of biochemical oxygen demand pollutants by at least 5,620t.

The project also intends to improve the efficiency of water use in irrigation by at least 20% in key perimeters of the Sergipe basin, totaling 1,150 hectares and benefiting some 1,000 families.

Project planners also aim to create and expanding environment conservation areas by a total of 2,400 hectares by 2017 to protect water resources and biodiversity along the Sergipe basin.

The World Bank’s partnership strategy with Brazil for the 2012 to 2015 period calls for a focus on investments in the Northeastern region, Brazil’s poorest area.

World Bank country director for Brazil, Makhtar Diop, said: "Sergipe is taking a bold step to integrate the management of all its water issues, from sanitation and access to safe water to irrigation in rural areas, from pollution control to water and climate-related risk management."