Kayser Georgia L, Amjad Urooj, Dalcanale Fernanda, Bartram Jamie, Bentley Margaret E
The Water Institute, The Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, The Gillings School of Global Public Health University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 27599-7431, USA.
The Water Institute, The Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, The Gillings School of Global Public Health University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 27599-7431, USA ; Global Research Institute University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 27599-7431, USA.
Environ Sci Policy. 2015 Apr 1;48:186-195. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2014.12.019.
Human health is greatly affected by inadequate access to sufficient and safe drinking water, especially in low and middle-income countries. Drinking water governance improvements may be one way to better drinking water quality. Over the past decade, many projects and international organizations have been dedicated to water governance; however, water governance in the drinking water sector is understudied and how to improve water governance remains unclear. We analyze drinking water governance challenges in three countries-Brazil, Ecuador, and Malawi-as perceived by government, service providers, and civil society organizations. A mixed methods approach was used: a clustering model was used for country selection and qualitative semi-structured interviews were used with direct observation in data collection. The clustering model integrated political, economic, social and environmental variables that impact water sector performance, to group countries. Brazil, Ecuador and Malawi were selected with the model so as to enhance the generalizability of the results. This comparative case study is important because similar challenges are identified in the drinking water sectors of each country; while, the countries represent diverse socio-economic and political contexts, and the selection process provides generalizability to our results. We find that access to safe water could be improved if certain water governance challenges were addressed: coordination and data sharing between ministries that deal with drinking water services; monitoring and enforcement of water quality laws; and sufficient technical capacity to improve administrative and technical management of water services at the local level. From an analysis of our field research, we also developed a conceptual framework that identifies policy levers that could be used to influence governance of drinking water quality on national and sub-national levels, and the relationships between these levers.
获得充足且安全的饮用水不足对人类健康有极大影响，尤其是在低收入和中等收入国家。改善饮用水治理可能是提高饮用水质量的一种方式。在过去十年中，许多项目和国际组织一直致力于水治理；然而，饮用水部门的水治理研究不足，如何改善水治理仍不明确。我们分析了巴西、厄瓜多尔和马拉维这三个国家政府、服务提供商和民间社会组织所认为的饮用水治理挑战。采用了混合方法：使用聚类模型进行国家选择，并在数据收集过程中结合直接观察进行定性半结构化访谈。聚类模型整合了影响水部门绩效的政治、经济、社会和环境变量，对国家进行分组。使用该模型选择了巴西、厄瓜多尔和马拉维，以提高结果的普遍性。这个比较案例研究很重要，因为在每个国家的饮用水部门都发现了类似的挑战；同时，这些国家代表了不同的社会经济和政治背景，并且选择过程使我们的结果具有普遍性。我们发现，如果应对某些水治理挑战，安全水的获取情况可能会得到改善：处理饮用水服务的各部委之间的协调和数据共享；水质法律的监测和执行；以及具备足够的技术能力以改善地方层面水服务的行政和技术管理。通过对我们实地研究的分析，我们还制定了一个概念框架，该框架确定了可用于影响国家和次国家层面饮用水质量治理的政策杠杆，以及这些杠杆之间的关系。
