Brazil to Host 8th World Water Forum in 2018 Amid National Water Crisis

Brazil will host the 8th World Water Forum in Brasília in 2018, marking the first time the event is held in the Southern Hemisphere. Newton de Lima Azevedo, a governor at the World Water Council (WWC), argues that Brazil's severe water supply crisis in São Paulo state has urgently highlighted the need to reinvent water resource management. The WWC, a non-governmental entity founded in Marseille, France in 1996, aggregates about 300 institutions from 70 countries and is currently presided by Brazilian civil engineer Benedito Braga. Azevedo, also vice-president of the Brazilian Association of Infrastructure and Basic Industries (ABDIB), secured the forum for Brazil over Denmark, emphasizing the need to address the continent's sanitation deficit where over 300 million people lack treated sewage, a third of whom are in Brazil. The country faces massive water waste, with states like Piauí losing up to 60% of treated water due to poor distribution networks. While 70% of Brazil's potable water is used indiscriminately by agribusiness and 20% by industry, only 10% supplies the general population. The forum aims to foster global policy expansion and deepen solutions for Latin America's water deficit, with the previous 7th edition held in South Korea in April 2015.