ISA BAUD
CHAPTER 1
MARKETS,PARTNERSHIPS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
IN SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT;RAISING THE QUESTIONS
1.1. INTRODUCTION
The global economic crisis in the 1970s led to significant transformations in interna-
tional and national institutional arrangements. Major actors on the international stage- countries such as the US and the UK, transnational corporations and the Bretton
Woods institutions – strongly advocated the primacy of the market and the retreat of
the state. Such neo-liberal ideas on market liberalisation and deregulation were
imposed on many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America under the aegis of struc-
tural adjustment programmes. One area governments in the South were strongly
advised to withdraw from was that of direct provision of basic services.
However, the results of these reform programmes were less successful than expected.
Although state governments reduced spending and economic growth occurred after an
initial period in some countries, the late 1980s were characterised by increasing
disparities between rich and poor. Within many southern states, urban poverty and
informalisation of employment and economic activities grew rapidly, presenting huge
problems for local authorities to deal with. In many cities, new forms of collective
organisation started to emerge among poor households together with a variety of
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in order to counter poverty and promote
community and neighbourhood development.In the 1990s, the limits of the free market approach were increasingly recognized by
even its most fervent advocates. Furthermore, the collapse of state communism and
the fall of the Berlin Wall had created an entirely new political climate, one favourable
to the democratic reform of state bureaucracies. The difficulties that many countries
in the south, but also in the former communist world, experienced in their transition
to a market economy also fuelled an interest in the (democratic) institutions that
underpin processes of development. Economists have expressed this interest by
looking at the role of meso-level institutions and how they influence economic
growth^1.1
I. Baud et al. (eds.), Solid Waste Management and Recycling, 1-18.
© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.