By Kassyo Rodrigues
It’s 5 am in the village of Sapó, in the State of Ceará, Brazil. Mrs. Raimunda Silva, 66 years old, is making coffee after having taken a shower in the only bathroom in her house. After serving a modest breakfast for her husband and grandchildren, she will do the laundry and prepare today’s lunch. She’s happy since her three sons are back from São Paulo; her sons realized that life in Sapó had gotten better with water supply, wastewater treatment, electricity, and the new job opportunities that came with this better local infrastructure and decided to return to their home place.
This simple daily routine is really a privilege for millions of families in the rural poor areas of Brazil. How was life before the water system came to Mrs. Silva village? Mrs. Silva still remembers the difficulties and uncertainties in those days before the implementation of the water system supply, and the fears of the families in her village: “Who is going to help us with the water system? We cannot afford to lose this important achievement. If we lose this opportunity maybe the Government will never invest again in this poor, remote area of the country. Are we able to afford the water tariffs?” She still retains in her memory those questions that were raised over the project implementation in the year 2001.
In the semi-arid region of Brazil, hundreds of thousands of families face every year the same question: Are we going to have enough water this year? The semi-arid region of the biggest country in South America and the 8th economy in the world has an enormous challenge to overcome regarding managing properly the water sources and provide good, reliable, and sustainable water supply to the families.
Mrs. Silva is the president of the Users Group Association (UGA) in her village, which is responsible to operate the water system and the wastewater treatment plant set up in 2001 by one of the Brazilian governmental projects focusing on rural development. The Users Group Association was created under the project implementation and now - besides operating the water system - manages two other programs focusing on generating income in the region. Mrs. Silva is also the village representative in the Federation of Water Users Group (SISAR) Board. Like the village of Sapó, all villages under the SISAR umbrella, have a say in the SISAR General Assembly and can be a member of the Board once the other villages support his/her application.
SISAR is a Federation of Associations formed by all the villages with water supply and wastewater system in the region and is responsible for the continuous maintenance in all its affiliated villages. Through the water tariffs paid regularly and on time by all the families, SISAR is also capable of providing management support to the villages, trainings, water quality control, and social support to enhance the Local User’s Group in the communities.
Mrs. Silva is proud of the water system set up in her village twenty years ago and understands the importance of having backup support provided by the Federation (SISAR) to keep the system running for the next 20 years. Mrs. Silva’s family is one of 250,000 families that operate water systems in Brazil under the support of SISAR. The SISAR Model has been helping Brazil to properly manage the infrastructure installed supplying 24/7 quality water to the poor families in the rural semi-arid region of Brazil. Mrs. Silva simple daily routine has a huge impact on her family and helped to keep her chores less heavy. This allows her to be more focused on her grandchildren and husband.
MACS planned and developed the SISAR Model and is proud of being part of Mrs. Silva’s life, as well as all the other Brazilian families who were benefited from this Model.
From 2001 until 2016, MACS was involved in the creation of a regional water supply utility based on an association of local user groups and representatives of municipalities in the interior of Piauí (Picos Region). The model is based on a concept of self-administration and self-sustainability through the foundation of the Sistema Integrado de Saneamento Rural do Piauí (SISAR/PI). The activities of SISAR comprise the operation, maintenance and administration of the sub-systems that compose the regional water supply system.
In the framework of this contract, a number of activities were carried out, such as the creation and training of user groups as well as the definition of legal structure, financial model and organizational structure. Moreover, the recruiting and training of technical /administrative staff, operators and members of councils was supported, as was the definition of maintenance requirements, work flow and procedures. MACS also assisted the implementation of proper MIS features and the tailored customer administration software. In parallel to the above described measures, public awareness campaigns were started to improve customer orientation and quick appraisals were undertaken to evaluate changes in management of customer behavior.
Based on his career as financial consultant and development banker, Thomas thought consulting and management services in the utility sectors should integrate economists and engineers as well as social scientists in a core team of permanent international staff for sustainable solutions. Thus MACS was born.
His experience in micro- and macro-economic policy analysis as well as detailed sector assessments in the fields of Finance, Water and Energy makes Thomas an expert in developing comprehensive finance strategies for network utilities including building the institutional and policy framework around it.
As one of the Partners and Managing Directors of MACS he is responsible for strategic development and controlling.