Photo: Brazilian Government to Spend $15 Billion to Expand Access to Water
The Brazilian government remains committed to the goal of providing universal access to clean water, President Dilma Rousseff said Monday during her weekly radio program.
The administration is on track to spend 30 billion reais ($15 billion) on water projects over the next two years, she said.
Eighty percent of that spending will go toward dams, reservoirs, canals and water-treatment plants and the remaining 20 percent is earmarked for the Water for All program, which since last year has brought clean drinking water to nearly a quarter-million people who previously lacked access.
The bulk of the investment in both categories is being directed toward Brazil’s impoverished Northeast, where chronic droughts batter a population that is largely dependent on agriculture.
Recife, one of the most populous cities in the region, recently had to impose water rationing.
Her government, Rousseff said, “is making every possible effort to confront this very important challenge” of ensuring access to water both for human consumption and agriculture.
