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MANAGING THE MONSTER This page intentionally left blank MANAGING THE MONSTER Urban Waste and Governance in Africa Edited by Adepoju G. Onibokun INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH CENTRE Ottawa • Cairo • Dakar • Johannesburg • Montevideo • Nairobi • New Dehi • Singapore Published by the International Development Research Centre PO Box 8500, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1G 3H9 © International Development Research Centre 1999 Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Main entry under title : Managing the monster : urban waste and governance in Africa Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-88936-880-5 1. Refuse and refuse disposal — Africa. 2. Urbanization — Environmental aspects — Africa. 3. Environmental policy — Africa. I. Onibokun, Adepoju G., 1943- . II. International Development Research Centre (Canada). TD790.M36 1999 363.72'8'6'096 C99-980242-9 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechan- ical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the International Development Research Centre. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the International Development Research Centre. Mention of a proprietary name does not constitute endorsement of the product and is given only for information. A microfiche edition is available. IDRC Books endeavours to produce environmentally friendly publications. All paper used is recycled as well as recyclable. All inks and coatings are vegetable- based products. CONTENTS Foreword vii — LucJ.A. Mougeot Preface ix Chapter 1 Governance and Waste Management in Africa 1 — A.G. Onibokun and A.J. Kumuyi Chapter 2 Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire 11 — Koffi Attahi Chapter 3 Ibadan, Nigeria 49 — A.G. Onibokun and A.J. Kumuyi Chapter 4 v Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 101 —J.M. Lusugga Kironde Chapter 5 Johannesburg, South Africa 173 — Mark Swilling and David Hutt Managing the Monster Chapter 6 Synthesis and Recommendations 227 — A.G. Onïbokun Appendix 1 Contributing Authors 253 Appendix 2 Acronyms and Abbreviations 257 vi Bibliography 261 FOREWORD This book presents the results of the African component of a global project on sustainable cities. In 1993, it successfully competed for support from a limited, special initiatives fund of Canada's Inter- national Development Research Centre (IDRC). At that time, pro- gram specialists argued that the project offered "great potential for an extensive and well-coordinated research network to pool scarce funding and conduct high-quality research, by senior specialists in renowned institutions, which would focus on priority urban social, environmental, and economic issues for a more sustainable management of Southern cities." The reader will no doubt find that this promise has been fulfilled by the research presented in this book. More importantly, we hope that you will concur that Managing the Monster is nothing less than a benchmark contribu- tion to our knowledge on governance and waste management in major urban centres of Africa. The authors are senior experts from a wide range of entities involved with waste management. They have served as advisers or vii directors of United Nations agency offices, research-oriented non- governmental organizations, metropolitan council departments, and university schools and institutes in Africa. Both the proposal and project benefited from discussion between the team and a larger group of experts from around the world, assembled under the Global Urban Research Initiative coordinated by Richard Stren of the University of Toronto. Managing the Monster Ably coordinated by Adepoju G. Onibokun, chief executive of the Centre for African Settlement Studies and Development in Nigeria, this team assigned itself the daunting task of tackling com- prehensively a notoriously underreported and mismanaged urban service: waste management. The published literature on the sub- ject was very limited and the researchers had to rely heavily on the gray literature, documents either unpublished or with limited cir- culation. Adding to their burden, the team undertook to investi- gate waste management through a governance perspective. At the viii time, this was a very new approach and, today, remains highly demanding and innovative, for the type of information it requires, the relationships it needs to address, and the recommendations it is expected to deliver. Managing the Monster highlights new directions on policy and technology that are highly relevant to IDRC's current focus on urban development research in the South. In a number of urban sectors (water, housing, utilities, open-space management, etc.), better governance is central to improving the effectiveness of ser- vice provision. As shown in this book, better governance implies redressing inequitable access to resources and services, confusion and conflict over responsibilities, top-down decision-making, and lack of accountability and transparency. Resource utilization by cities cannot be made more sustainable without increasing waste and by-product recovery; this is needed to reduce urban demands on rural areas and to make cities themselves more viable and live- able. A more equitable, viable, and sustainable use of urban resources can only be enhanced by better governance. Further, the positive experiences and local capacities dis- cussed in this book point to the real potential for much greater Africa-Africa exchange and cooperation. Greater societal partici- pation, a more decentralized administration, locally appropriate legislation and technologies, and a more integrated approach to managing urban resource flows are all needed to reduce costs and to increase incomes of increasingly poorer city populations and deficit-ridden urban governments. LucJ.A. Mougeot Senior Program Specialist International Development Research Centre Ottawa, Canada M.PREFAC .§.«• * J A A &. ^aJ EJLJ This work is the product of comparative research on governance and ttrhan waste in Africa carried out by four teams of researchers in four major cities in Africa: Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, in franco- phone West Africa; Ibadan, Nigeria, in anglophone West Africa; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in East Africa; and Johannesburg, South Africa, in southern Africa. The study was funded with a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), of Canada. The coordinators of the research are members of the African Research Network for Urban Management, which has for more than 10 years embraced most of the leading urban researchers and urban-research institutions on the African continent. This book attempts to characterize waste-management sys- tems in Africa within the framework of governance. It pursues the governance debate and how it helps us to deepen our understand- ing of urban problems in Africa. It has six chapters. Chapter 1 is an overview of the governance debate in Africa, focusing on the various ways governance is conceptualized. It concludes that to ix move the debate forward, we need to operationalize the concepts by applying them to a specific aspect of urban management in Africa — in this case, urban waste. This chapter also discusses the scope and the objectives of the studies carried out in the selected African cities and the methodology adopted by the research teams. Chapters 2-5 contain analyses of the waste-management systems and approaches in the four key African cities. Chapter 6 is a Managing the Monster synthesis chapter, presenting an analytical overview of the key governance themes raised in Chapter 1. Chapter 6 assesses the effi- ciency and effectiveness of different modes and modalities (for example, public, private, and community sectors) of managing urban waste, as typified by the selected cities, in political, socio- logical, economic, and environmental terms. The chapter also rec- ommends policy options for waste management in urban Africa on the basis of what worked or did not work in the four cities. Many people, too numerous to list, contributed to the x research for this book. I am immensely grateful to Dr Koffi Attahi, Mark Swilling, and Lusugga Kironde, who worked with me to coordinate the research. They ably responded to constant demands for review meetings, updates of data, and revisions of draft reports. Special mention must be made of IDRC, which supported the research and is publishing this book. IDRC has had a tremendous impact on human-resource development and capacity-building in Africa through its research-support activities. The Centre for African Settlement Studies and Development is a living example. IDRC's support for this and other initiatives is highly appreciated. I am also grateful to Richard Stren of the University of Toronto, who is the Coordinator of the Global Urban Research Initiative. Professor Stren made useful comments on the study methodology and arranged for the presentation of the first draft of this work in Mexico City and in Istanbul before wider audiences of researchers, policymakers, and donor agencies. This work is meant to spur concerted action on the endemic problem of urban-waste management in Africa. It is our hope that this publication will further our understanding of the issues and help us achieve a more liveable urban environment in Africa. A.G. Onibokun Chapter 1 GOVERNANCE AND WASTE MANAGEMENT IN AFRICA A.G. Onibokun and AJ. Kumuyi THE URBANIZATION PROCESS IN ÂFRICA Every society wishes to grow in knowledge, population, and value. However, a peak is always reached in the