About us
Founded in 2003 in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, IPJ Engenharia is a sanitation design and consulting firm, qualified as a design firm by SABESP, working in Brazil and abroad.
IPJ grew out of its director's experience with condominial sewerage — the technology that brings sanitation to favelas, low-income neighborhoods and dense cities at lower cost and with community participation. From the first systems built in Natal, Brazil, in 1984, that experience went through the large programs of CAESB in Brasília and EMBASA in Salvador, and today reaches Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa through consulting for the IDB and the World Bank.
To develop sustainable and innovative technical solutions for the sanitation sector.
Our story
- 1984
Brazil's first condominial sewerage systems, in Natal (CAERN / World Bank), alongside José Carlos Melo, creator of the model.
- 1997
Head of Condominium's Salvador branch: designs and in-house connections for EMBASA's Bahia Azul Program.
- 2003
IPJ Engenharia is founded in Salvador.
- 2008
Contribution to the book "Sistemas Condominiais" by Brazil's Ministry of Cities.
- 2016
Consulting for the IDB begins: dissemination of condominial sewerage in Latin America and programs in the Dominican Republic.
- 2019
Consultant to the World Bank: Colombia, Dominican Republic and Mozambique.
- Today
Designs for SABESP and other utilities, and coordination of the SaniHUB Ramales app.
Technical director
Ivan Paiva
Civil engineer (UFRN) · Director of IPJ Engenharia · IDB and World Bank consultant
For over 40 years he has worked with condominial sewerage. The systems he has designed serve more than 3 million people. Co-author of "The Political Economy of Sanitation" (WSP/World Bank, 2011) and of the case study "The Use of Appropriate Sanitation Technology in Low-Income and Informally Occupied Areas: A Case Study of EMBASA's Experience With the Condominial Sewerage System in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil" (Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Global Public Health, 2024). Works in Portuguese, Spanish and English.
International work
- Brazil
- Dominican Republic
- Colombia
- Argentina
- Paraguay
- Haiti
- Mozambique
- Libya