The manuscript deals with problems handled by policy makers which needs do manage financial resources to support environmental education projects relative to water resources management. The main questions presented are: "What kind of Environmental Education should we support?"; "Which conceptions of water resources are we taken?" and "When does a project of Environmental Education have to do with water resources and vice-versa?" These questions are answered by recognizing the legitimacy and necessity of the State to assume its coordinative, selective and inductive hole, based on several case-study. It is also said that it is not sufficient for State to only stimulate projects, and this same State should structure itself to be able to know and to evaluate the magnitude and distribution of the different kind of financial support already granted, being a researcher of its own action and practice. This way, it is believed that it is possible to align the results of actions to the principles that generated them, in accordance with the main objectives of the Brazilian National Policy of Environmental Education.
environmental education; water resources; State; empowerment; social participation