GEO Brasil - UNEP

dissatisfaction by 50 per cent, by cleaning urban
areas in the cities and incorporating a list of defined
actions.
f) Programme of Urban infrastructure (GO-INFRA
– programmea de Infra-estrutura urbana)
This is a programmeme linked to SEDU/PR for the
reduction of displacement costs, of environmental
pollution and of traffic accidents through actions
giving priority to public investments in urban public
transport and in road safety. By giving support to
the actions undertaken by the Inhabit-Brazil and
PASS programmemes, it also aims to reduce risk
and insalubrities in inhabited areas with low income
populations, located across the entire national
territory. Among the affected financing interventions
are those related to improvements in the urban
infrastructure in degraded, unhealthy or risky areas.
g) Programme to Housing in Brazil
(Programa Habitar Brasil)
This programme’s principal objective is to ameliorate
the quality of life of low income families,
predominantly those which income equal or inferior
to three monthly minimum wages, living in
subnormal agglomerates located in state capitals or
municipal districts belonging to metropolitan areas
or in urban agglomerations. Linked to SEDU/PR, it
depends on the financing of the Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB), and directs its resources
mainly to the institutional development of municipal
districts for the execution of projects and
infrastructure services, besides motivating
community development actions.
It is interesting to note that if sanitation progress of
the seventies was linked, above all, to the
technological aspects more directly linked to the
execution of projects, the present alternative
technological proposals and, mainly, the innovative
initiatives in the field of service management become
the most important issues of the area. An aspect of
great importance in the change of direction was the
assimilation of a new vision on public policy, which
is based on the decentralization of responsibilities
and procedures.
The new vision that appeared on the sanitation issue was
demonstrated through the National Consultation on the
Management of Sanitation and of the Environment. This
Consultation renewed the methodology of the
consultation of society sectors. This was accomplished
by the Brazilian Institute of Municipal Management
(Instituto Brasileiro de Administração Municipal - IBAM)
in 1995 (sponsored by CEF/PMSS-IPEA/BIRD). It
includes the capitals of nine metropolitan areas and five
medium-sized cities of the country (Volta Redonda,
Florianópolis, Campo Grande and others). The results
demonstrated consensus of positions concerning the
need for municipal districts to participate more intensely
in the conduction of the sanitation policy, the
decentralization of urban environmental management
and the inclusion of the urban environmental theme in
policies feedback
h) National Fund of the Environment
(Fundo Nacional do Meio Ambiente - FNMA)
Created in 1989 (Law nº 7.797/89) it is an important
decentralisation instrument of environmental policy
in the country. It has a wide reach and flexibility to
include municipal projects, linking plans of public
management, NGOs and society. The law on
environmental crimes established that a percentage
of the collection of resources coming from fines
and infractions would go to the FNMA.
i) Progress in Urban Environmental
Management
Still referring to sanitation, significant progress has
been observed more recently in the Brazilian cities
(including understanding what sanitation really is).
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