INSTITUTIONALIZING HOUSEHOLD WASTE COLLECTION - THE URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL-MANAGEMENT PROJECT IN COTE-DIVOIRE

The efficient disposal of municipal solid waste is critical in maintai ning the quality of urban life. Household waste removal is one of the key factors in ensuring the health and safety of the population, but i s often neglected in rapidly growing cities of the Third World. This p aper presents a case study of the Urban Environmental Management Proje ct in the Gate d'Ivoire in which groups of young entrepreneurs were tr ained to collect household solid waste in small cities of 20,000-50,00 0 inhabitants located outside the capital region. The project was a jo int collaboration of the US Peace Corps and the Ministries of Interior and Health in the Gate d'Ivoire. It was conceived as a local response to an increasing municipal service burden caused by the national econ omic crisis of the 1990s and the government's efforts to reduce the si ze of the national budget by decentralizing services to cities, While community based solid waste strategies have been successful in large c ities in other countries, this project demonstrates the potential for innovative arrangements at lower levels of the urban hierarchy. The pa per also emphasizes the importance of formalizing public-private insti tutional arrangements in order to ensure their long term sustainabilit y. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.