Social and environmental justice in basic sanitation: A view on municipal planning experiences

Abstract

The study makes a reflection on the links between planning in the field of sanitation and the promotion of social and environmental justice. In coordination with analytical categories of social and environmental justice, it is built an analytical matrix to study the experiences in the municipalities of Alagoinhas-BA and Belo Horizonte-MG. Based on interviews with several actors and content analysis, the results indicate that the links between the implementation of municipal sanitation plans and the promotion of social and environmental justice are related to the empowerment of the society; supra-local articulations; political interests; correlation of forces; institutional/political capacity of the local authority; mechanisms to protect services from market logic and economic efficiency. It marks, therefore, the importance of social practices to establish strategies to the appropriation of instruments that could lead to the transformation of the reality towards a fairer society with social participation.