The Private Sector as a Partner for SDG 6-Related Issues in Megacities: Opportunities and Challenges in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

This article reviews recent studies that address water sustainable management opportunities and challenges in megacities around the world, with an emphasis on the case of Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region, one of the two megacities in Brazil. With reference to recent debates on water, megacities, and the climate crisis, as well as UN Water and Global Report Initiative documents, we focused on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation for All. The new Brazilian sanitation legal framework regulates public–private partnerships. In this context, the manuscript discusses the main question concerning water, sanitation, and hygiene that arises in the Brazilian case study: is universality possible in profit-oriented models? Through the current technical and academic literature consulted, the paper compares initiatives involving multiple stakeholder governance models that depend on private resources to implement universal access to drinking water, sanitation, and water-related extreme event controls, pointing out alternatives that can help to achieve the targets of SDG. Validation by key informants supports the synthesis of the reviewed documents, and the findings illustrate that concerted public efforts together with market mechanisms can help to overcome challenges and surpass the profit-oriented logics of private companies to achieve access to healthy and safe water, adequate sanitation, and improved hygiene, especially for vulnerable populations. This finding has transferability to other megacities in emerging countries that are facing public–private partnership debates on the provision of clean water and sanitation for all.