Community Participation in Municipal Solid Waste Management in Informal Settlements:Morogoro Municipality, Tanzania

Tanzania like other poor countries in Sub-Saharan Africa faces rapid urbanization. It has overwhelmed local government’s resources for provision of municipal solid waste management. The Global Agenda 21 has urged poor countries to complement their limited resources by collective action to achieve sustainable solid waste management. Despite the adoption of such a strategy; solid waste management in informal settlements where many of the urban poor live is still critical. It negatively affects them socially and economically. This study was conducted in Morogoro municipality to investigate various factors which affect community participation in municipal solid waste management (CP in MSWM) in a market economic situation. They formed the theoretical conceptual framework of this study. The research methodology involved a randomly sampled population of 266 (10%) households out of 26642 total households in Morogoro municipality. Questionnaire interviews, different types of observations, in-depth interviews and documentary review formed the research data collection techniques. The study used cross tabulation and descriptive analyses to analyse variables. The findings show that Morogoro municipality has not yet achieved effective CP in MSWM due to various reasons. First, it was due to lack of appropriate organization, mobilization and coordination of local resources; and community empowerment. Second, elites are rhetoric about CP in MSWM for them still plan and act conventionally; some cannot enforce environmental laws due to corruption. Third, the outdated and deficient environmental laws could not work efficiently in the current market economic situation. This study concluded that, the municipal authority lacked commitment to practice the strategy. If other parts of sub-Saharan Africa from which this study selected some “success stories” managed to achieve sustainable MSWM, why not Morogoro municipality and other urban areas in Tanzanian? This study recommends that, local authorities should raise enough ‘own resources’ (municipal rates, local taxes, and other charges on a cost recovery basis). They should also enforce the existing laws and review the obsolete ones so that everyone who generates wastes has to pay for it