Governança e desempenho na implementação inicial de uma parceria público-privado de esgotamento sanitário em Juazeiro do Norte, Brasil

Abstract

The universalization of sanitation services within Brazil's regulatory framework depends not only on investment, but on governance arrangements capable of articulating expansion, regulation, performance measurement, and the production of comparable information for decision-making. This article examines the initial implementation of the sanitation Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in Juazeiro do Norte (CE), with emphasis on the relationships between governance, regulation, operational performance, and information quality. A descriptive-analytical case study was conducted based on documentary analysis and auditable secondary data. The results indicated that Juazeiro do Norte entered the PPP with a historically fragmented system, significant informational asymmetries, and a deficit that cannot be interpreted through a single metric. In 2024, while institutional data indicate a coverage rate of 39.92%, the public accountability report, based on household connections, recorded 31% and a network utilization rate of 63.82% of the existing infrastructure. The case suggests an initial break from prior stagnation, but not yet a consolidated performance transition. Analytically, the study demonstrates that universalization may be overestimated when coverage, available network, served connections, and effective use are treated as equivalent. In this context, advancing universalization requires methodological harmonization of indicators, integration between operational monitoring and regulatory validation, strengthening of information governance, and strategies aimed at converting physical expansion into effective network connection, real network use, and verifiable environmental improvement.