Abstract
We investigated cultural influences on the implementation of water safety plans (WSPs) using case studies from WSP pilots in India, Uganda and Jamaica. A comprehensive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews (n=150 utility customers, n=32 WSP ‘implementers’ and n=9 WSP ‘promoters’), field observations and related documents revealed 12 cultural themes, offered as ‘enabling’, ‘limiting’, or ‘neutral’, that influence WSP implementation in urban water utilities to varying extents. Aspects such as a ‘deliver first, safety later’ mind set; supply system knowledge management and storage practices; and non-compliance are deemed influential. Emergent themes of cultural influence (ET1 to ET12) are discussed by reference to the risk management, development studies and institutional culture literatures; by reference to their positive, negative or neutral influence on WSP implementation. The results have implications for the utility endorsement of WSPs, for the impact of organisational cultures on WSP implementation; for the scale-up of pilot studies; and they support repeated calls from practitioner communities for cultural attentiveness during WSP design. Findings on organisational cultures mirror those from utilities in higher income nations implementing WSPs – leadership, advocacy among promoters and customers (not just implementers) and purposeful knowledge management are critical to WSP success.
Highlights
water safety plans’ (WSPs) encompass all stages of water supply, their objectives to preventively minimize the contamination of source waters; reduce or remove contamination through treatment processes; and prevent contamination during storage, distribution, and the handling of drinking water (Davison et al, 2005)
We were first interested in institutional experiences of WSP implementation and the traction
40 60 Nil 32 26 22 20 Nil Nil 6 86 Nil 8 Nil 42 36 22 Nil Spanish Town (n = 7) 14 86 43 29 29 Nil Nil 100 29 71 Spanish Town (n = 3) 33 67 33 67 Nil Nil Nil 100 100 utilities secured implementing WSPs, considering aspects of organisational culture and scale-up. These contextual observations serve as a platform for the discussion of the emerging themes 1–12; cultural influences on WSP implementation observed across the utilities and a means of presenting these for practitioners
Summary
WSPs encompass all stages of water supply, their objectives to preventively minimize the contamination of source waters; reduce or remove contamination through treatment processes; and prevent contamination during storage, distribution, and the handling of drinking water (Davison et al, 2005). WSP implementation (Fig. 1) tests the organisational cultures of utilities that adopt them (Devas and Grant, 2003; Summerill et al, 2011). A continuous improvement cycle of preventative risk management across the water supply chain, maintained by targeted interventions at so-called ‘critical control points’, WSPs require leadership commitment and a revised approach to water safety; cross-department teams sharing system knowledge; and long-term commitment to keeping the water safety agenda alive among utilities and their stakeholders. To assist WSP implementation, WHO and IWA have capacity-building programmes in place to transfer knowledge between utilities in lower, middle and higher income countries, and vice versa
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