Factors That Impact the Implementation of Water Safety Plans—A Case Study of Brazil

Abstract

A water safety plan (WSP) is a tool proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the mitigation of risks in water consumption, and little is known about the challenges of its implementation stage. The goal of this work was to identify the facilitating factors and challenges regarding WSP implementation from a case study in Brazil. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with water supply public service providers who already have implemented such policy and with supporting institutions that helped with the process implementation. As a result, it has been identified that the WSP implementation is strongly influenced by the quality of WSP preparation process, which means that this process is the foundation of the WSP implementation; through internal management of the organization, whose administrative discontinuities thwart the actions’ implementation; and through the relationship of the service provider with the external actors, which can interfere be it in the data collection or the WSP implementation scope’s entirety. Lastly, it was possible to conclude that the WSP preparation process, the organization’s internal management, and its relationship with external actors are the specific factors that impact the WSP implementation. The conduction and deepening of studies aiming to improve the tools of support for WSP implementation are thus recommended.